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DIAGRAM SHOWING HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 
Wh 


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4th Century 


9th Century 


14th Century 


Vth Century 


17th Century 


19th Century VERSION 


_ 41) Contents of Original Manuscripts (now lost) survive in the existing 
WIANUSCRIPTS, VERSIONS, and FATHERS. (See p. to.) 

(2) The Latin Vulgate (a revision of the Old Latin Versions by comparison 
with Greek and Hebrew Manuscripts) is the source of our English Versions 
down to Tyndale. He first draws from manuscript sources but of modern date. 


43) The three sources—Manvscripts, VERSIONS, and FATHERS—are all 
combined for the first time in the recent Revision. 


~—~w 


How We Got Our Bible 


BY jf 
- J. PATERSON SMYTH 
B.D. D2 D EVE. DeCiLs 


Author of ‘‘The Bible in the Making,’* ‘‘How God Inspired the 
Bible,” ‘‘The Ancient Documents and the Modern Bible,” 
““How to Read the Bible,’? ‘‘The Story of St. 

Paul's Life and Letters,’* 


NEW YORK 


JAMES POTT & COQ. 
é 1924 


Copyright, 1899 
By JAMES POTT & CO. 





Copyright, 1912 
By JAMES POTT & CO. 


New and Revised Edition, April, rora 
Reprinted Jan. and Dec., 1913 


eb., 1914 
oi Oct., 1975 
iby Jan. and Dec., 1916 
Oct., 1917 
“ts Feb. and Nov., 1919 
rt Nov., 1920 
sy Oct., 1921 
, » 1923 


vie Sept. 1924 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 
SOURCES OF OUR BIBLE. 


1. The Old Record Chest. 2. Copyists’ Errors. 3. Neces- 
sity of Revision. 4. Sources of Information Open to 
Revisers. 5. Textual Criticism. .........00.s0e0005 


CHAPTER II. 
ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 


The Oldest Bibles in the World. 1. The Vatican Manu- 
script. 2. The Sinaitic Manuscript. 3. The Alex- 
andrian. 4. Palimpsests. 5. The Manuscript of Beza. 
6. Cursive Manuscripts. 7. Old Testament Revision. 


CHAPTER III. 
ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 


1. Various Early Versions. 2. An ancient ‘“ Revised 
Bible.” 3. How Revision was regarded fifteen cen- 
turies ago. 4. Advantage of this investigation. 5. 
Quotations from Ancient Fathers.................. 


CHAPTER IV. 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 


1. The Bible Poet. 2. Eadhelm and Egbert. 3. The 
Monk of Yarrow. 4. A Royal Translator. 5. Cu- 


PR UREPORT ODN OL alee Viele ieee hie atau niga yb a 


PAGES 


11-29 


30-41 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER V. 
WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 


x. Growth of the Language. 2. The Parish Priest of Lut- 
terworth. 3. The State of the Church. 4. The Bible 
for the People. 5. Wycliffe as a Reformer. 6. His 
Death. 7. His Bible. 8. Results of his Work....... 57-79 


PAGES 


CHAPTER VI. 
TYNDALE’S VERSION. 


1. Printing. 2. The Renaissance. 3. William Tyndale. 
4. The First Printed New Testament. 5. Clerical 
Opposition. 6. The Bible and the Church. 7. Two 
Types of Reformers. 8. Pakington and the Bishop. 
9. Scene at St. Edwards. 10. The Death of Tyndale. 
t1.0The Tyndale Bible.*. 8). .eilvane wesc Uh oy bie sean 80-111 


CHAPTER VII. f 
THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 


1. Three Vears After. 2. Twenty Years After. 3. Fifty 
Wears\More Gone By. 0 cs weit pace cen s Sheena I12-132 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE REVISED VERSION. 


1. Preparation for Revision. 2. The Jerusalem Chamber. 
3. The Revisers at Work. 4. Claims of the Revised 
Bible.’ 5. Should it Disturb Men’s Faith? 6. General 
Remarks. 7, Conclusion,........ ty ln ah ie POR ease eee 133-153 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FACING 


DIAGRAM SHOWING HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE......... .. Title Page 
PHOTOGRAPH OF ANCIENT GREEK MANUSCRIPTS...... Sete 10 
PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SINAITIC MANUSCRIPT............0000- 16 
PHOTOGRAPH OF THE CODEX EPHRAEM.............000: Pina 
PHOTOGRAPH OF THE CODEX BEZE.........0cc cece ceceee Sie gt 124. 
PHOTOGRAPH OF A‘LFRIC’S ANGLO-SAXON BIBLE............- 54 
PHOTOGRAPH OF WYCLIFFE’S BIBLE...........ceecceceeeeee 76 
PHOTOGRAPH OF TYNDALE’S NEW TESTAMENT............... 108 


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HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 


CHAPTER I. 
SOURCES OF OUR BIBLE. 


L The Old Record Chest. II. Copyists’ Errors. III. Necessity 
of Revision. IV. Sources of Information open to Revisers. 
Y. Textual Criticism. 


Let the scope of this book be clearly under- 
stood. The question How we got our Bible is a 
very wide one and the full answer should tell of 
the making of the Bible and the writers of the 
Books and the ancient -historical material which 
they used and also how it happened that this par- 
ticular collection of books came to be separated 
from the other literature of the time and regarded 
as inspired and collected into a Bible. This part 
of the answer I have already tried to give in 
another book. 

The present treatise takes the answer at a later 
stage when the books were already completed and 
received as the inspired guide of the Church. It 
traces the story of the Bible from the early manu- 


2 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


scripts of Apostolic days down to the last Revised 
Version which is in our hands to-day.’ 


I. 


We begin by imagining before us the record 
chest of one of the early Christian churches,—say 
Jerusalem, or Rome, or Ephesus,—about 120 — 
A. D., when sufficient time had elapsed since the 
completion of the New Testament writings to- 
allow most of the larger churches to procure copies 
for themselves. In any one church, perhaps, we 
should not find very much, but if we collect to- 
gether the documents of some of the leading 
churches we should have before us SO oa of 
this sort: 

1The writer has issued a full series of books on the making 


of the Bible which should be read, as far as possible, in the 
order stated: 


I. Tur BIBLE IN THE MAKING. 


in the light of modern research. 
This is the book referred to on previous page. 


II, How We Gor Our Bisie. i 


Ill. Tue Ancient DocUMENTs AND THE MopERN BIBLE. ~ 
An easy lesson for the people on textual criticism; 
with plates and fac-similes, 


IV. How Gop Inspirep THE BIBLE. iG 
Thoughts for the present disquiet about Higher Criti- 
cism. 


V. How to Reap THE Bree. 77. 
Suggestions on reading the Divine Library. 


VI. Tue Story or St. Paut’s Lire AND LETTERS. 


SOURCES OF OUR BIBLE. 3 


I. Some manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testa- 
ment books. 


The reader will keep in mind that the Old Testament books 
were originally written in Hebrew, those of the New 
Testament in Greek. 


II. A good many more of the Old Testament 
books translated into Greek for general use in the 
churches, Greek being the language most widely 
known at the time. 


This translation is called the Septuagint, or “ Version of the 
Seventy,’ from an old tradition of its having been 
prepared by seventy learned Jews of Alexandria. It 
was made at different times, beginning somewhere 
about 280 B. c., and was the version commonly used by 
the Evangelists and Apostles. This accounts for the 
slight difference we sometimes notice between the Old 
Testament and their quotations from it, our Old Testa- 
ment being translated direct from the Hebrew. 


III. A few rolls of the Apocryphal Books, writ- 
ten by holy men in the Church, and valued fos the 
practical teaching they contained. 

IV. Copies of the Gospels and the Acts, the 
Epistles of SS. Paul and Peter and John, and the 
Book of the Revelation. 


Le 


Now let us remember clearly that as we look 
into that old record chest of nearly 1800 years 
ago, we have before us all the sources from which 
we get our Bible. 

And remember further that these writings were 


$ HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


of course all manuscript, i. e., written by the hand, 
and that copies when needed had each to be writ- 
ten out, letter by letter, at a great expense of time 
and trouble, and of course, very often too at some 
expense of the original correctness. However 
careful the scribe might be, it was almost impos- 
sible, in copying a long and difficult manuscript, to 
prevent the occurrence of errors. Sometimes he 
would mistake one letter for another—sometimes, 
if having the manuscript read to him, he would 
confound two words of similar sound—sometimes | 
after writing in the last word of a line, on looking 
up again his eye would catch the same word at the 
end of the next line, and he would go on from that, 
omitting the whole line between. Remarks and 
explanations, too, written in the margin might 
sometimes in transcribing get inserted in the text. 
In these and various other ways errors might 
creep into the copy of his manuscript. ‘These 
errors would be repeated by the man that after- 
ward copied from this, who would also sometimes 
add other errors of his own. So that it is evident, 
as copies increased, the errors would be likely to 
increase with them, and therefore, as a general 
rule,) THE EARLIER ANY MANUSCRIPT, THE MORE 
LIKELY IT IS TO BE CORRECT. 
* This is only a general rule. Of course it is quite possible for 
@ manuscript A. D. 1500 to be copied direct from one of A. D. 300, 


and therefore to be more correct than some a thousand years 
older. 


SOURCES OF OUR BIBLE. 5 


The reader may easily test this for himself by 
copying a dozen pages of a book, then hand on the 
copy to a friend to recopy, and let him pass on to 
another what he has written, and so have the 
operation repeated through six or eight different 
hands before comparing the last copy with the 
original. It will be an interesting illustration of 
the danger of errors in copying. Even in printed 
Bibles, whose proofs have been carefully examined 
and reéxamined, these mistakes creep in. To take 
two examples out of many: An edition published 
in 1653, reads 1 Cor. vi. 9, ‘‘ Know ye not that the 
unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God;”’ 
and the “ Printer’s Bible,’ much sought by book 
collectors, puts:the strange anachronism in King 
David’s mouth, “ Printers have persecuted me 
without a cause ’’ (Ps. cxix. 161). 

We know, of course, God might have miracu- 
lously prevented scribes and compositors from 
making these mistakes; but it does not seem to be 
God’s way anywhere to work miracles for us 
where our own careful use of the abilities He has 
given would suffice for the purpose. 


6 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


ITI. 


Although, owing to the special care exercised in 
transcribing the Scriptures,’ the errors would be in 
most cases of comparatively trifling importance, 
yet it is evident from what has been said about the 
growth of copyists’ errors, that in the course of the 
centuries before the invention of printing, Bible 
manuscripts might easily have grown very faulty 
indeed. Therefore the printed Bibles, taken — 
hastily from these modern and probably corrupt 
manuscripts, would need a thorough revision, and 
this revision would need to be repeated again and 
again, as facilities increased, till the. Scriptures 
were as nearly as possible as they left the inspired — 
writers’ hands. 

But how is this revision to be accomplished? Of 
course, if the original writings had remained, it 
would be quite a simple operation, as a careful 
comparison with them would at any time discover 
whatever had need of correction. But, it is hardly 


* As an interesting instance of the care exercised in transcrib- 
ing important documents, Irenzus, Bishop of Lyons, in the second 
century, thus writes in one of his own books: “ Whosoever thou 
art who shalt transcribe this book, I charge thee with an oath 
by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His glorious appearing, in 
which He cometh to judge the quick and dead, that thou care- 
fully compare what thou hast transcribed, and correct it accord-, 
ing to this copy whence thou hast transcribed it, and thou 
transcribe this oath in like manner, and place it in thy copy.” 
Farther on I shall have to notice the solemn reverential care 
bestowed by the Hebrew scribes on copies of the Old Testament. 


SOURCES OF OUR BIBLE. 7 


necessary to say, the original writings have long 
since disappeared. Some of them, written on the 
common writing material of the day,—the papyrus 
paper referred to in 2 John, ver. 12,—very soon 
got worn out from use,’ others were lost or de- 
stroyed in the early Christian persecutions. In 
any case they have totally disappeared. 

How then is revision to be accomplished? In 
the absence of these original manuscripts, what 
sources of information are open to Bible revisers? 


IV. 


For answer let us turn from the ancient record 
chest, whose contents are now irrecoverably lost, 
and imagine beneath some oaken library roof a 
vast mass of manuscripts, piled up before us in 
THREE separate heaps,—manuscripts of very 
varied kind—stained and torn old parchments— 
books of faded purple, lettered with silver—beau- 
tifully designed ornamental pages—bundles of fine 
vellum, yellow with age, bright even yet with the 
gold and vermilion laid on by pious hands a thou- 
sand years since—in many shapes, in many 
colours, in many languages,—thousands of old 
Scripture writings reaching back for 1500 years. 


* Jerome tells of such a library in Czsarea, already partly 
destroyed within a century after its formation, and of the en- 
deavors of two presbyters te restore the manuscripts by cepying 
them on parchment. 


8 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


This pile represents the great Biblical treasures 
stored up to-day in the various libraries of Europe 
—all the old copies at present remaining of the 
inspired Books. And here in this mass of old 
_ manuscripts is the material accessible to scholars 
for the purpose of Bible revision. 

In these piles we shall find three different classes 
of writings: (1) These faded parchments, with 
the crowded square lettering, are copies in the 
original languages of the different Scriptures con- 
tained in the old record chest. These are known 
as Biblical “‘ MANUSCRIPTS,” for though all the 
early Scriptures are of course written by the hand, 
the name manuscripts has been by common consent 
of scholars appropriated to the copies in the origi- 
nal tongue. 

(2) But those farther on are evidently different 
in language, the writing, at least of the few whose 
pages are visible, being so very unlike the others. 
That open manuscript on the top, written all over 
in running lines and loops, is a Syriac translation, 
the two next are Coptic and Latin, and all these 
are ANCIENT VERSIONS, 7. e., translations of the 
Bible into the languages of early Christendom, 
some of them representing the Scriptures of about 
fifty years after the death of St. John. 

(3) The contents of the third pile, though a 
good deal resembling the Biblical manuscripts in 
appearance, are not even books of the Scriptures 


SOURCES OF OUR BIBLE. 9 


at all, but WRITINGS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN 
FATHERS from the second to the fifth century. 
The use of these:we shall see afterwards. 


vi 


The science that deals with this mass of evi- 
dence is called ‘‘ textual criticism,’ a science which, 
though only in its infancy when our Authorized 
Version was issued, has reached in the present day 
a very high degree of perfection. Suppose then 
our revisers, men skilled in this study, are occu- 
pied on say a passage in the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, desiring to present it as nearly as possible 
as it left the hands of St. Paul, how will they make 
use of this mass of evidence? 

I. They will search for the very oldest Greek 
manuscripts in which the Epistle occurs, for, as we 
have already seen, the oldest are likely to be the 
most correct, and they will get as many as possible 
of them to compare them together for the elimi- 
nating any errors that may have crept in, for it is 
evident that if a number of copies are made of the > 
same original, even should each of the copyists 
have erred, no two are likely to make exactly the 
same error, therefore a false reading in any one 
can often be corrected by comparison with the 
others, 


? 


10 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


II. Then they will examine the ancient versions, 
and see how the passage in question was read in 
Syriac and Latin and other ancient languages 1700 
years ago. : 

III. But what use can they make of the rest of 
the parchments—those writings of the early 
Christian Fathers? A very important use. They 
search these carefully for quotations from this 
Epistle. These early Fathers quoted Scripture so. 
largely in their controversies that it has been said 
if all the other sources of the Bible were lost, we 
could recover the greater part of it from their 
writings. The most important of them lived in 
the second, third, and fourth centuries, and as they 
of course quote from the Scriptures in use in their 
time, it is like going back sixteen hundred years 
to ask men, How did your Scripture render this 
passage of St. Paul? Unfortunately their quota- 
tions seem often made from memory, which a 
zood deal spoils the value of their testimony. 

The sources of information, then, open to 
revisers may be briefly summed up as— 

I. Manuscripts. II. Versions. III. Quota- 
tions from the Fathers.* Each of these will be 
treated of more fully in the following chapters. 


*See Diagram facing the title-page. 


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Larty Greek Mas 
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PHOTOGRAPH OF ANCIENT GREEK MANUSCRIPTS: 
(From Westwood’s Paleographia Sacra Pictoria.) 


t. Scrap of a famous Greek Manuscript of Genesis, (Codex Geneseos 


2. 
3. 


4. 
5. 


Cottonianus). 
Portions of its writing, full size. 
Fac-simile of the Alexandrian Codex in the British Museum. 
A portion of a 9th Century Manuscript. 
Beginning of 29th Psalm on Papyrus in the British Museuns 





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CHAPTER Th 
ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 


The Oldest Bibles in the World. I. The Vatican Manuscript. 
II. The Sinaitic Manuscript. III. The Alexandrian. IV. 
Palimpsests. V. The Manuscript of Beza. VI. Cursive 
Manuscripts. WII. Old Testament Revision. 


Ler us still keep imaged before our minds the 
triple pile of Biblical writings to be examined. 
We come first to the MANUSCRIPTS, the copies * 
of the Scripture in the original tongues. Of the 
Greek there is quite a large number—more than 
1500—before us, and from the difference in their 
condition and general appearance one is inclined 
to suspect that they must vary a good deal in age, 
and therefore probably in value. The question of 
determining the age of a manuscript is a very 
intricate one; but it should make our inspection 
of these the more interesting if I briefly state a few 
easy marks to guide us: 
The form of the letters is the chief guide. The 
oldest and therefore most valuable are written in 
‘The reader should keep this distinction clearly before him to 


prevent confusion. MANuscripts=copies in the original tengue. 
VERSIONS=-translations into ether tongues. 


2 ll 


12 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


capital letters, and without any division between 
the words, as if we should write 


NOWWHENJSWASBORNINBETHLEHEMOF. 


These are called uncial manuscripts. ‘The mod- 
ern are written in a running hand like our writing, 
and are therefore called cursive. (It will be useful 
to remember these names, as they frequently 
occur in Bible commentaries, and in criticisms of 
the Revised Version.) 

Then again, initial letters, miniatures, and in 
general any ornamentation of manuscripts, marks 
them as of comparatively late date. 

Far the greater number of the manuscripts be- 
fore us are written in the cursive hand, many of 
them. beautifully illuminated and ornamented with 
exquisite miniatures and initials. But we turn at 
once from these to their less attractive compan- 
ions, those few faded, worn parchments with the 
old uncial letters. Notice especially those three 
bound in square book form; they are plain, faded- 
looking documents, with little about them to 
attract attention, but these three manuscripts are 
among the greatest treasures the Christian Church 
possesses—the oldest copies of the Bible in the 
world! ‘They are named respectively the Vatican, 
Sinaitic, and Alexandrian Manuscripts. They 
have been largely used in the recent Bible Revision, 
but they were not any of them accessible to 


ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 13 


those who prepared the Authorized Version in 
1611. 

These three oldest manuscripts are curiously 
enough in possession of the three great branches 
of the Christian Church. The ALEXANDRIAN 
(called for shortness Codex A) belongs to Protes- 
tant England, and is kept in the manuscript room 
of the British Museum; the VATICAN (Codex B) 
is in the Vatican Library at Rome; and the 
SINAITIC (Codex Aleph), which has only lately 
been discovered, is one of the treasures of the 
Greek Church at St. Petersburg. 

These manuscripts show us the Bible as it ex- 
isted soon after the apostolic days. There has 
been a good deal of discussion about their age, 
which need not be entered on here; but we shall 
not be far from the truth if we say roundly that 
they range from about 300 to 450 A. D. There- 
fore the oldest is about as distant in time from 
the original inspired writings as the Revised is 
from the Authorized Version. All the Greek 
manuscripts before this time seem to have perished 
in the terrible persecutions which were directed 
not only against the Christians themselves, but 
also and with special force against their shag 
writings. 


i4 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


I. 


THE VATICAN Manuscript. Each of these 
three manuscripts has its history. The most 
ancient, it is generally agreed, is the Vatican manu- 
script, which has lain at least four or five hundred 
years in the Vatican Library at Rome. One is 
much inclined to grudge the Roman Church the 
possession of this our most valuable manuscript; 
for the papal authorities have been very jealous 
guardians, and most persons capable of examining 
it aright have been refused access to it. Dr. Tre- 
gelles, one of our most eminent students of textual 
criticism, made an attempt; but he says they 
would not let him open the volume without search- 
ing his pockets, and depriving him of pens and ink 
and paper; the two priests told off to watch him 
would try to distract his attention if he seemed too 
intent on any passage, and if he studied any part 
of it too long they would snatch away the book. 
However, it has of late years become easily acces- 
sible through the excellent fac-similes made by 
order of Pope Pius [X., which may be seen in our 
chief public libraries. 

The manuscript consists of about 700 leaves of 
the finest vellum, about a foot square, bound 
together in book form. It is not quite perfect, . 
having lost Gen. i.—xlvi., as well as Psalms cv.— 


ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 15 


exxxvil., and all after Heb. ix. 14 of the New 
Testament. The original writing must have been 
beautifully delicate and finely formed. There are 
only a few words left here and there by which to 
judge of this; for from one end to the other, the 
whole manuscript has been travelled over by the 
pen of some meddlesome scribe of about the tenth 
century. Probably he was afraid of the precious 
writing fading out if it were not thus inked over; 
but if so his fears were quite groundless, for here 
are some of the words which he passed over (con- 
sidering them incorrect) remaining still perfectly 
clear and legible after the lapse of 1500 years. 
Each page contains three colums, and the writing 
is in capital letters, without any division between 
the words. This makes it less easy to read, but 
of course it was done to save space at a time when 
writing material was very expensive. 

To carry this saving further, words are written 
smaller and more crowded as they approach the 
end of a line, and for the same reason was adopted 
the plan of contracted words, which has often 
been the cause of manuscript errors. First, they 
cut off the final M’s and N’s at the end of a word, 
marking the omission by a line across the top, as 
if we should write Lonpo for London; then they 
proceeded to the dropping of final syllables, and 
from that to the shortening of frequently recur- 
ring words, like the name Jesus or Ged. We 


16 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


might fairly represent these peculiarities (which 
are common to all the early manuscripts) by writ- 
ing thus in English (Titus ii. 11, 12): 


FORTHEGRACEOFGDBRINaine 
SALVATIONHATHAPPEARED 
TOALL MN TEACHINGUSTHATDEN 
YINGUNGODLINESSANDWOR 
LDLYLUSTWESHOULDLIVESOB 
ERLY ANDGODLYINTHIS PRES Enr 
EVILWORLDLOOKINGFORTHAT 
One remark more before we lay it aside. It 
will be noticed that in the Revised New Testament 
the passage at the end of St. Mark’s Gospel is 
printed in as in some degree doubtful, with a note 
in the margin that ‘‘ the two oldest Greek manu- 
scripts omit these verses.’’ Now this and the 
Sinaitic are the two manuscripts referred to, and 
-if we could examine the manuscripts we should 
see that this one, while omitting the passage, 
curiously enough leaves a blank space for it on 
the page, showing that the scribe knew of its 
existence, but was undecided whether he should 
put it in or not. 


iI. 


Tue Srnaitic Manuscript. There is no need 
of describing this celebrated manuscript, which'on 
the whole very much resembles the other; but the 


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ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 17 


story of its discovery about fifty years ago is full 
of interest. It is called the Sinaitic Manuscript 
from the place where it was found by the great 
German scholar, Dr. Tischendorf. His whole life 
was given up to the discovery and study of ancient 
manuscripts of the Bible, and he travelled all over 
the East, searching every old library he could get 
into for the purpose; but it was quite unexpect- 
edly in St. Catharine’s Convent, at the foot of 
Mount Sinai, that he discovered this the “ pearl 
of all his researches,” as he calls it. 

In visiting the library of the convent in the 
month of May, 1844, he perceived in the middle 
of the great hall a basket full of old parchments, 
and the librarian told him that two heaps of simi- 
lar old documents had already been used for the 
fires. What was his surprise to find in the basket 
a number of sheets of a copy of the Septuagint 
( Greek) _ Old Testament, the most ancient-looking 
manuscript that he had ever seen. The authori- 
ties of the convent allowed him to take away about 
forty sheets, as they were only intended for the 
fire; but he displayed so much satisfaction with 
his gift that the suspicion of the monks was 
aroused as to the value of the manuscript, and 
they refused to give him any more. 

He returned to Germany, and with his precious 
sheets made a great sensation in the literary 
world. But he took very good care not to tell 


18 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


where he had got them, as he still had hopes of 
securing the remainder; and he soon had reason 
to congratulate himself on his caution, for the 
English Government at once sent out a scholar 
to buy up any valuable Greek manuscripts he could 
lay hands on, and poor Dr. Tischendorf was very 
uneasy lest the Englishman should stumble upon 
the old basket on Mount Sinai. You may judge 
of his relief when he saw the Englishman’s report | 
soon after, telling of his failure; “‘ for,” said he, 
‘after the visit of such a critic as Dr. Tischens 
dorf, I could not, of course, expect any success.’ 
The doctor seems quite to enjoy the telling this 
part of the story. 

He tried next, by means of an influential friend 
at the court of Egypt, to procure the rest of the 
manuscript, but without success. ‘“* The monks of 
the convent,” wrote his friend, ‘“‘ have since your 
departure learned the value of the parchments, 
and now they will not part with them at any 
price.’ So he paid another visit to Mount Sinai, 
but could only find one sheet, containing eleven 
lines of the book of Genesis, which showed him 
that the manuscript originally contained the entire 
Old Testament. 

To shorten the story, I must pass over fifteen 
years, during which time he had enlisted the sym- 
pathy of the Emperor of Russia, and in 1859 we 
find him again at the convent with a commission 


ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 19 


from the Emperor himself. However, he found 
very little of any value, and had made his arrange- 
ments to leave without accomplishing his mission, 
when a quite unexpected event brought about all 
that he had wished for. The very evening before 
he was to leave he was walking in the grounds 
with the steward of the convent, and as they re- 
turned the monk asked him into his cell to take 
some refreshment. Scarcely had they entered the 
cell, when, resuming his former conversation, the 
monk said: “I too have read a copy of that Sep- 
tuagint.” And so saying he took down a bulky 
bundle, wrapped in red cloth, and laid it on the 
table. ‘Tischendorf opened the parcel, and to his 
great surprise found not only those very frag- 
ments that he had seen fifteen years before, but 
also other parts of the Old ‘Testament, the New. 
Testament complete, and some of the Apocryphal 
Books. 

Full of joy, which this time he had the self- 
command to conceal, he asked in a careless way 
for permission to look over it in his bedroom. 
‘* And there by myself,” he says, ‘I gave way to 
my transports of joy. I knew that I held in my 
hand one of the most precious Biblical treasures in 
existence, a document whose age and importance 
exceeded that of any I had ever seen after twenty 
years’ study of the subject.” 

At length, through the Emperor’s influence, he 


20 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


succeeded in obtaining the precious manuscript, 
which is now stored up in the Library of St. 
Petersburg, the greatest treasure which the East- 
ern Church possesses. Strange that after all the 
vicissitudes of fifteen centuries it should at length 
be restored to the world only fifty years since! 
It.is.now.easily accessible to scholars through its 
fac-similes in all our great libraries. | 

| Now see the photographed sheet of this manu- 
“script, at page 42, shewing the close of St. Mark’s 
gospel and the beginning of St. Luke’s. We have 
purposely chosen this part of the manuscript for 
illustration. We have already (page 16) men- 
tioned the fact that the Revised Version has 
printed the last twelve verses of St. Mark as 
in some degree doubtful, and has put a notice in 
the margin that “the two oldest Greek Manu- 
scripts omit these verses.” This and the Vatican 
Mauscript are the two referred to. The evidence 
of the Vatican manuscript, however, is very doubt- 
ful, for though it omits these verses it leaves the 
whole following column blank as well as the re- 
mainder of the column on which v. 8 is written. 
Nowhere else does it leave such a blank at the end 
of a book, and the fact indicates that the scribe 
knew of the existence of the passage and was 
uncertain whether to put it in or not. 

The evidence of the Sinaitic, however, is quite 

unhesitating. St. Mark’s gospel evidently ends on 


ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 21 


this page as photographed, and any one who can 
read Greek can see in this photograph that it ends 
with the words EPHOBOUNTO Gar, “ for they were 
afraid” (v. 8). 

It should be interesting for the reader to be 
able to see the very passage on which the Revisers 
depend so much. This is not the place to discuss 
the question whether the Revisers are right or not. 
But we may here say that those two old manu- 
scripts with some statements of Eusebius, the 
great church historian, are the only important evi- 
dence against the passage in question, while nearly 
all the rest of the manuscripts and most of the 
Versions bear testimony on the other side. 


ITT. 


THE ALEXANDRIAN MANuscriPT (Codex A). 
This youngest of our three great manuscripts has 
special interest for us, being in the custody of 
England, and preserved with our great national 
treasures in the British Museum. It was pre- 
sented to Charles I. by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of 
Constantinople, A. D. 1628, and therefore arrived 
in England seventeen years too late to be of use in 
preparing our Authorized Version. ‘The Arabic 
inscription on the first sheet, states that it was 
written ‘‘ by the hand of Thekla the Martyr.” 

Only ten leaves are missing from the Old Tes- 


29 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


tament part, but the New Testament is much more 
defective, having lost twenty-five leaves from the 
beginning of St. Matthew, two from St. John, and 
three from Corinthians. It is written two columns 
on a page, the Vatican and Sinaitic having respect- 
ively three and four. The original can be seen at 
the British Museum, but copies which exactly rep- 
resent it are, like those of the other two, kept in 
our chief public libraries. A small piece of it has 
been photographed in the plate of the five Greek 
manuscripts. See plate facing page ro. 


IV. 


Here is the Codex of Ephraem, a very curious 
manuscript, all stained and soiled, and seemingly 
of little value, as it is written in quite a modern 
hand. It requires a closer examination to notice 
under that straggling handwriting the faint, faded 
lines of old uncial letters. This is what is called 
a Palimpsest or Rescript Manuscript, 7. e., one that 
has had its original contents rubbed out to make 
room for some other writing. We noticed already 
contractions, &c., adopted to save parchment at a 
time when it was very expensive. For the same 
purpose scribes sometimes used old parchments 
that had been written on before, and, by carefully 
scraping and pumicing out the old letters, made 
the skin tolerably fit for use again. 


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ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 23 


It need hardly be said that in many cases the 
writing thus blotted out was of far greater value 
than that which replaced it, and especially is it so 
in this case, where an ancient and valuable copy of 
the Scriptures was in the twelfth century coolly 
scrubbed out to make room for some theological 
discourses of St. Ephraem, an old Syrian Father. 

The old writing, however, had not been so thor- | 
oughly rubbed but that some dim traces remained, 
which drew attention to the manuscript about 200 
years since. It was very difficult to decipher the 
old hand till some chemical preparation applied | 
in 1834 revived a good part of it, though it very — 
much stained and defaced the vellum. The MS. 
was then found to contain a considerable portion 
of both Old and New Testaments, and it is con- 
sidered almost if not quite as old as the Alex- 
andrian. It was brought into France by Queen 
Catherine de Medici of evil memory and is now 
preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. A por- 
tion of it is reproduced on the opposite page. 


Vie 


There is just one more uncial manuscript that 
deserves mention. This is the Codex Beze which 
is in the University Library at Cambridge. It was 
presented to the University in 1581, by Theodore 
Beza, the friend of Calvin, with a statement in 


24 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


his own handwriting that he had got it in 1562, 
from the monastery of St. Irenzeus, at Lyons— 
(Lyons was sacked in that year). It is somewhat 
later in date than the other great uncials already 
mentioned and is written in Greek and Latin on 
opposite pages. | 

It is in many ways a curious and interesting 
document. It shows part of a very old Greek and 
a very old Latin Bible which do not always exactly 
correspond. It shows traces of the work of sev- 
eral correctors, some of them very ancient. One 
can see how the original scribe, whenever he made 
a slip, washed it out with a sponge, and how he 
corrected with a pen nearly empty of ink. Later 
correctors scraped out with a knife what seemed 
to them incorrect, and so have in some places 
spoiled the manuscript. But the most curious 
thing is the daring interpolations in the text, most 
of which are entirely unsupported by other manu- 
scripts. Most of them are probably worthless 
but yet it is not improbable that some of them may 
contain lost sayings and deeds of Our Lord, such 
as St. John refers to in chapter xxi. 25, “ there are 
also many other things which Jesus did, the which 
if they should be written every one I suppose that 
even the world itself would not contain the books 
that should be written.” 

Our photograph facing page 2 55 shows a very 
famous one, of which even so cautious a writer as 





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ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 25 


Dr. Westcott says ‘‘ It is evident that it rests on 
some real incident.’ It occurs in St. Luke vi., 
between the fourth and fifth verses. It is in the 
midst of the Pharisee’s disputes with Our Lord 
about the keeping of the Sabbath. For conveni- 
ence sake the Latin is photographed underneath 
the Greek insteaa of opposite it. The reader can 
easily follow the Latin on the photograph. 


quibus non licebat manducare si non solis sacerdotibus 
which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone. 


This is the end of v. 4 and then follows the 


interpolation: 


EODEM DIE VIDENS 

QUENDAM OPERANTEM SABBATO ET DIXIT ILLI 

HoMo SIQUIDEM’ SCIS QUOD FACIS 

BEATUS ES. SI AUTEM NESCIS MALEDICTUS 

ET TRABARICATOR LEGIS. 

THE SAME DAY SEEING 

A CERTAIN MAN WORKING ON THE SABBATH HE SAID TO HIM 
MAN IF INDEED THOU KNOWEST WHAT THOU ART DOING 
HAPPY ART THOU. BUT IF THOU KNOWEST NOT THOU ART AC- 
CURSED AND A TRANSGRESSOR OF THE LAW. 


VI 


All that we have examined up to this date are 
of uncial type, which, as we have seen, is a mark 
of their antiquity. Of these Uncials we have 
altogether about a hundred. 

Of the more modern manuscripts, in the cursive 


26 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


or running hand, there are more than 1500 acces- 
sible to scholars. It has been already remarked 
that it is quite possible for a comparatively mod- 
ern manuscript to possess a high value, as, for 
example, suppose a scribe of the fifteenth century 
had copied in running hand direct from the “ Vati- 
can.” For this and other reasons some of our 
Cursives are very important evidence. There is 
one, for instance, the ‘‘ Queen of the Cursives,”’ | 
as it 1s called, which, for its valuable readings, 
ranks above many a far older Uncial, and there 
are four others, quite modern in date (twelfth to 
fourteenth centuries), which have been shown by 
Professor Abbott and the late Professor Ferrar, 
of Trinity College, Dublin,* to be ‘transcribed 
from one and the same ancient manuscript, which 
was probably little later than our Alexandrian 
Codex. 

If we remember that ten or twelve manuscripts, 
and these generally modern, are all we have for 
ascertaining the text of most classical authors, it 
will help us to understand what an enormous mass 
of evidence there is available for the purpose of 
Scripture revision. 


* Collation of Four Important Manuscripts,’ by W. H. Fer- 
rar, F.T.C.D., edited by T. K. Abbott, F.T.C,D. Dublin, 1377. 


ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 27 


VII. 


\ 


The Hebrew manuscripts of.the.Old. Testament. 
need occupy little time. It is rather startling to 
learn that the earliest Hebrew manuscripts in exist- 
ence date no earlier than about the tenth century, 
A.D., i. e., about the time of William the Con- 
queror! This is a grave disadvantage to the 
textual criticism of the Old Testament, more espe- 
cially since the Hebrew alphabet and method of 
writing have quite changed since the days of the 
prophets. The lack of early manuscripts here is, 
however, of less importance than would appear at 
first sight. As far as we can learn there seems to 
have been a gradual rough sort of revision of the 
Palestine manuscripts continually going on almost 
from the days of Ezra. About a thousand years 
ago this process of Hebrew Manuscript Revision 
came to an end, and thus at that early date the 
Hebrew Old Testament was made as nearly cor- 
rect as the best scholarship of the Jewish acad 
emies could make it, after which the older manu 
scripts gradually disappeared.* 

The existing Hebrew manuscripts, then, though 
not very old, are of great authority, and all the 
more so owing to the reverence of Jewish scribes 

*For the story of the Hebrew manuscripts, see the author’s 


“The Old Documents and the New Bible,” 
3 


28 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE, 


for the Word of God, and the consequent careful- 
ness of their transcription. So scrupulous were 
they that even if a manifest error were in the copy 
they transcribed from, they would not meddle with 
it in the text, but would write in the margin what 
the true reading should be; if they found one let- 
ter larger than another, or a word running beyond 
the line, or any other mere irregularity, they 
would copy it exactly as it stood. They recorded 
how many verses in each book, and the middle 
verse of each, and how many verses began with 
particular letters, &c., &c. Such exactness, of 
course, very much lessened the danger of erro- 
neous copying, and makes our Hebrew Scriptures 
far more trustworthy than they could other- 
wise be. 

The reason then that there are so few changes 
in the Revised Old Testament, as compared with 
the New, is that we have probably less need and 
certainly less means of making any corrections.’ 
In fact, the chief grounds for undertaking Old 
Testament revision are the increased knowledge 
of Hebrew and of textual criticism, together with 
the changes through natural growth of the English 
language itself. We may add also, for their 
united evidence is very important, the more thor- 

*It is no reflection on the Old Testament revisers to suggest 
also that they could scarecly avoid being influenced in some 


degree by the strong feeling exhibited against the many changes 
in the New Testament portion. 


ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 29 


ough study in the late years of the Septuagint and 
the Targums, together with the Vulgate and other 


ancient versions, to be described in the next 
chapter. 


CHAPTER III. 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 


I 


I. Various Early Versions. II. An Ancient ‘“ Revised Bible.” 
III. How Revision was regarded fifteen centuries ago. IV. 
Advantage of this investigation. V. Quotations from | 
Ancient Fathers. 


WE are to examine now our second pile—the 
ANCIENT VERSIONS, i. ¢., the translations of the 
Bible into the languages of early Christendom 
long before the oldest of our present Greek manu- 
scripts were written. “These were the Bibles used 
by men, some of whose parents might easily have 
seen the apostles themselves, and therefore it is 
evident that, even though only translations, they 
must often be of great value in determining the 
original text. 

There are the old Syriac Scriptures, which were 
probably in use about fifty years after the New 
Testament was written, a Version representing 
very nearly the language of the people among 
whom our Lord moved. Those discolored parch-, 
ments beside them are Egyptian, Ethiopic, and 


30 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 31 


Armenian Versions, which would be more useful 
if our scholars understood these languages better; 
and the beautiful silver-lettered book, with its 
leaves of purple parchment, is the Version of 
Ulfilas, bishop of the fierce Gothic tribes about 
A. D. 350. Here are the “ Old Latin,’ which, 
with the Syriac, are the earliest of all our Yer- 
sions, and the most valuable for the purpose of 
textual criticism. 

But what is this Version piled up in such enor- 
mous numbers, far exceeding that of all the others 
put together, some of its copies, too, ornamented 
with exquisite beauty? 


If. 


It is a Version which in these days of the 
English ‘‘ Revised Version” should possess spe- 
cial interest for English readers—St. Jerome’s 
Latin Vulgate, the great ‘‘ Revised Version” of 
the ancient Western Church. This is its story. 

Toward the end of the fourth century, so many 
errors had crept into the ‘‘ Old Latin’ Versions 
that the Latin-speaking churches were in danger 
of losing the pure Scripture of the apostolic days. 
Just at this crisis, when scholars were keenly feel- 
* Gibbons says: “He prudently suppressed the four books of 


Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce spirit of the bar- 
barians,” 


32 . HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


ing the need of a revision, there returned to Rome 
from his Bethlehem hermitage one of the greatest 
scholars and holiest men of the day, Eusebius 
Hieronymus better known to us as St. Jerome, 
and his high reputation pointed him out at once 
as the man to undertake this important task. 
Damasus, bishop of Rome, applied to him for 
that purpose, and Jerome undertook the revision, 
though he was deeply sensible of the prejudice 
which his work would arouse among those who, he 
says, ‘‘ thought that ignorance was holiness.”’ His © 
revision of the New Testament was completed in 
385, and the Old Testament he afterward trans- 
lated direct from the original Hebrew, a task 
which probably no other Christian scholar of the 
time would have been capable of. We shall better 
understand the value of his work if we remember 
that it is almost as old as the earliest of our pres- 
ent Greek manuscripts, and since Jerome of course 
used the oldest manuscripts to be had in his day, 
his authorities would probably have extended back 
to the days of the apostles. 

No other work has ever had such an influence 
on the history of the Bible. For more than a 
thousand years it was the parent of every version 
of the Scriptures* in Western Europe, and even 
now, when the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts are 
so easily accessible, the Rhemish and Douay Tes- 


*See Diagram facing the title-page. 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 33 


taments are translations direct from the Vulgate, 
and its influence is quite perceptible even on our 
own Authorized Version. 


III. 


How do you think the good people of the 
fourth century thanked St. Jerome for his won- 
derful Bible? Remembering the prejudice which 
our Revised Version excited not many years ago, 
it is interesting to recall the story how the Re- 
vision of the old monk of Bethlehem was received. 

It was called revolutionary and heretical; it 
was pronounced subversive of all faith in Holy 
Scriptures; it.was said to be an impious altering 
of the Inspired Word of God. In fact, for centu- 
ries after, everything was said against it that igno- 
rant bigotry could suggest to bring it into dis- 
repute. The Christians of that day had their old 
Bible, which they venerated highly and believed 
to be quite correct, and probably the sound of its 
sentences was as musical in their ears, who could 
associate them with the holiest moments of their 
lives, as that of our beautiful Authorized Version 
is in ours. 

But St. Jerome fought his battle, perhaps with 
more temper than was necessary," insisting that no 


1Thus, writing to Marcella, he mentions certain poor crea- 
tures (homunculos), who studiously calumniate him for his cor- 


34 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


amount of sentiment could be a plea for a faulty 
Bible, and that the most venerable translation 
must give way if found to disagree with the origi- 
nal text. 

It is instructive to us to see how completely the 
tide had turned at the time of the council of Trent, 
a thousand years later. Men had then got as 
attached to the version of St. Jerome as those of 
the fourth century had been to its predecessors. 
In fact, they seem almost to have forgotten that 
it was only a translation. It is the version of the 
Church, they said, and in her own language; 
“ Why should it yield to Greek and Hebrew manu- 
scripts, which have been for all these hundreds 
of years in the hands of Jewish unbelievers and 
Greek schismatics?” Well, how did they act? 
They decreed in council that the old Vulgate 
should be regarded as the standard text, and to 
this day, with all the progress in textual research, 
the Roman Church has held to that decision. 

An amusing exhibition of the feeling at the 
time is a passage in the preface to the Compluten- 


recting words in the Gospels. “I could afford to despise them,” 
he says, “if I stood upon my rights; for a lyre is played in vain 
to an ass. If they do not like the water from the pure fountain- 
head, let them drink of the muddy streams;” and again, at the 
close of the letter, he returns to the attack of those “bipedes 
asellos” (two-legged donkeys). “Let them read, ‘ Rejoicing iz 
hope, serving the time ;’ let us read, ‘ Rejoicing in hope, serving 
the Lord;’ let them consider that an accusation should not under 
any circumstances be received against an elder; let ws read, 
* Against an elder receive not an accusation; but before two or 
three witnesses,’” &c. (Ep. 28). 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 35 


sian Polyglot Bible, where the Hebrew and the 
Greek and the Latin Vulgate were printed in par- 
allel columns side by side, the venerable old Vul- 
gate being in the middle, which the editors with 
grim humor compared to the position of our Lord 
between the two thieves at the crucifixion! Of 
course they did not mean any slight to the original 
Scriptures, but their prejudice led them to suspect, 
or to fancy they had a right to suspect, that the 
Jews and Greeks might have corrupted the manu- 
script copies. 


IV. 


This glance at the Ancient Versions will be suf- 
ficient for our purpose. There is a large number 
now accessible to scholars, and every year the 
study of them is increasing. In passing, I would 
point to this part of our subject to illustrate the 
advantage indirectly resulting from the investiga- 
tion of questions suggested by our New Revision. 
For here we find that at a time when some scepti- 
cal writers would have us believe our New Testa- 
ment books were scarcely written, they had been 
translated and copied and re-copied in the lan- 
guages of early Christendom; commentaries and 
harmonies of the Gospels had been written; a list 
of the books had been prepared (of which we 
have still a portion called the Muratorian Frag- 


36 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


ment), and they were regarded in all arguments 
between Christians of the time as referees having 
divine authority. All this will be seen still more 
clearly after we have briefly glanced at the third 
_ source of information open to revisers: 


Mi: 


THE QUOTATIONS IN EARLY CHRISTIAN 
Writers. The quantity of these writings is great, 
but they have been up to this time very imperfectly 
examined. In spite of the disadvantages of the 
quotations being often fragmentary, and sometimes 
-—as will be seen in the examples—made loosely 
from memory, they are yet of great value in deter- 
mining the text of ancient Bibles, some of them 
going back to the days of the original New Testa- 
ment writings. Let us turn over a few of them 
at random, taking the earliest in preference. 

(a.) Here is the Epistle of Barnabas, which 
Doctor Tischendorf found bound up with his 
Sinaitic Manuscript. It was supposed, though 
without good reason, to have been written by St. 
Paul’s companion; but certainly it is not much 
later than his date. Notice these expressions: 
“Beware, therefore, lest it come upon us as it is 
written, ‘ There be many called but few chosen;’ ” 


again, “Give to him that asketh thee.” And 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 37 


farther on he says, ‘‘that Christ chose as His 
apostles men who were sinners, because He came 
nor to call the righteous, but sinners to repent- 
ance.”’ 

(b.) This next is an Epistle by Clement, one of 
the early bishops of Rome, whom ancient writers 
unhesitatingly assert to be the Clement mentioned 
by St. Paul in Phil. iv. 3. This letter is a very 
valuable one, and Irenezus, who was bishop of 
Lyons a little later, says of it, “ It was written by 
Clement, who had seen the blessed apostles and 
conversed with them, who had the preaching of 
the blessed apostles still sounding in his ears and 
their tradition before his eyes.” ‘The epistle was 
addressed to the Church of Corinth, and Dio- 
nysius, bishop of Corinth about 170 A. D., bears 
witness ‘that it had been wont to be read in his 
church from ancient times.” Here are a few 
expressions found in it: “ Remembering the 
words of the Lord Jesus which He spake, teaching 
us gentleness and long-suffering; for He said, 
‘Be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, 
that it may be forgiven unto you; as ye give it 
shall be given unto you; as ye judge ye shall be 
judged; with what measure ye mete, it shall be 
measured to you.’”’ 

And again, ‘‘ Remember the words of the Lord 
Jesus, how He said, ° Woe to the man by whom 
offences come; it were better for him that he had 


38 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


not been born than that he should offend one of 
My elect. It were better for him that a millstone 
should be tied about his neck, and that he should 
be drowned in the depths of the sea, than that he 
should offend one of My little ones.’ ” 

(c.) Of about the same date is this book, the 
Shepherd of 'Hermas, by some conjectured to be 
the Hermas of Rom. xvi. 14. Here we have ref- 
erence to the confessing and denying of Christ, the 
parable of the seed sown, the expression, “ He 
that putteth away his wife and marrieth another, 
committeth adultery,” &c., &c. 

(d.) St. Ignatius became bishop of Antioch 
about forty years after the Ascension. Here are 
a few quotations from him: ‘‘ Christ was bap- 
tized of John, that all righteousness might be ful- 
filled in Him.” ‘“ Be ye wise as serpents in all 
things, and harmless as a dove.”’ ‘ The Spirit is 
from God, for it knows whence it cometh and 
whither it goeth.”’ 

(e.) The martyr Polycarp was a disciple of St. 
John, and is thus spoken of by Irenzus, bishop of 
Lyons, who in his youth had seen him: “I can 
tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and 
taught, and his going out and coming in, and the 
manner of his life, and how he related his conver- 
sations with John and others who had seen the 
Lord, all which Polycarp related agreeably to the 
Scriptures.”’ Of this old martyr we have an 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 39 


epistle remaining, and though it is a very short 
one, it contains nearly forty clear allusions to the 
New Testament books, some of which are valu- 
able for critical purposes. 

(f.) Those old parchments lying beside Poly- 
carp’s Epistle, are the “‘ Apologies,” by Justin 
Martyr, and his ‘“‘ Dialogue with Trypho,” writ- 
ten about the year 150. They contain very inter- 
esting quotations, though unfortunately they seem 
often quoted from memory, and therefore lose 
much of their value. This is only what we might 
expect. ‘‘ When we think it strange,” says Dr. 
Salmon,? “ that an ancient father of Justin’s date 
should not quote with perfect accuracy, we forget 
that in those days, when manuscripts were scarce 
and concordances did not exist, the process of 
finding a passage in a manuscript (written pos- 
sibly with no spaces between the words) was not 
performed with quite as much ease as an English 
clergyman writing his sermon, with a Bible and 
Concordance by his side, can turn up any text he 
wishes to refer to, and yet we should be sorry to 
vouch for the verbal accuracy of all the Scripture 
citations we hear in sermons at the present day.” 

The following are a few of Justin’s quotations: 
“T gaye you power to tread on serpents and scor- 
pions, and venomous beasts, and on all the power 


*“Introd. New Testament,” p. 82. 


40 . HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


of the enemy.” ‘‘ Give to him that asketh, and 
from him that would borrow turn not away; for 
if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, 
what new thing do ye? Even the publicans do 
this. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and 
where robbers break through; but lay up for your- 
selves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor 
rust doth corrupt.”” For what is a man profited if 
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for 
it?’’ And again, ‘‘ Be ye kind and merciful, as 
your Father also is kind and merciful, and maketh 
His sun to rise on sinners, and the righteous and 
the wicked. Take no thought what ye shall eat or 
what ye shall put on; are ye not better than the 
birds and the beasts? and God feedeth them. | 
Take no thought, therefore, what ye shall eat or 
what ye shall put on, for your heavenly Father 
knoweth that ye have need of these things. But 
seek ye the kingdom of heaven, and all these 
things shall be added unto you. For where his 
treasure is, there is the mind of man.” | 

On account of the double object in view, I have 
selected only writers of the second century to illus- 
trate the use of the ‘‘ Quotations.” More impor- 
tant for purposes of criticism, though later in date, 
are those thick manuscripts further on, the works 
of Origen and Clement of Alexandria early in the © 


ANCIENT VERSIONS AND QUOTATIONS. 41 


third century, and in the fourth Basil, and Augus- 
tine, and Jerome the great reviser, and many 
others, whose writings in large quantity are avail- 
able for criticism of the Bible. 


CHAPTER IV. 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 


I. The Bible Poet. II. Eadhelm and Egbert. III. The Monk 
of Yarrow. IV. A Royal Translator. V. Curious Ex- 
pressions. ; 


THus we have seen the form in which the Scrip- | 
tures existed in the age soon after that of the 
apostles, and found the threefold line of evidence 
available at the present day for the purpose of 
Bible Revision—(1.) Greek and Hebrew manu- 
scripts; (2.) Ancient Versions; and (3.) Quota- 
tions from the then existing Scriptures in the 
works of early Christian writers. 

And now that we are to trace the connection of 
these with our present English Bible, it becomes 
necessary for our purpose to ask, with the triple 
pile of parchments before us, how much of this 
material was accessible a thousand years ago, 
when the history of our English Bible begins. For 
it is evident that the value of a Scripture version 
at any period depends on the value of the old 
manuscript material accessible, and the ability of 
the men of that day to use it. 

For answer we take from the centre pile those 


42 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 43 


few faded worn-looking copies, portions of the 
Vulgate and older Latin versions, and place them 
on the one side.*. Those are the Scriptures which 
have come down to us from the monasteries of 
ancient England, and as we compare side by side 
this handful of old parchments with the great 
mass of writings from which it has been drawn, 
we are comparing together the sources of the 
earliest and latest English Versions—of the 
Anglo-Saxon Scriptures of a thousand years since, 
and the Revised Bible which is in our hands to- 
day.” The growth of the English Bible, which 
took place in the meantime, we are now briefly to 
trace.® 


* There were also many works of the early Christian Fathers, 
but as no one then thought of using them for purposes of textual 
criticism, we need not take them into account. 

7 On page facing the title I have tried to show by a diagram 
the gradual increase in the sources of our English Bible. 

* Here comes a temptation to an Irish writer. Is he bound to 
start from the eighth century, when the earliest known transla- 
tions from these manuscripts were made? May he not go back 
a little further, and let rise the historic memories called up by 
those manuscripts themselves? May he not indulge a little in 
the “Irish pride of better days” (the only source of pride to 
poor Ireland in the present), and picture the noble libraries of 
Durrow and Armagh, to which England probably owes her 
earliest Scriptures—when St. Columb carried his manuscripts to 
lonely Iona in the days of the glory of the Irish Church, when 
Ireland was the light of the Western World, and Irishmen went 
forth from the “Island of Saints” to evangelize the heathen 
English? 

At any rate it seems worth spending a few sentences to point 
out that not from Rome, but from the ancient Irish Church, did 
England chiefly derive her Christianity, and probably her 
earliest Scriptures. What seems best remembered in connection 
with the question, is the famous scene of Gregory in the slave- 
acy at Rome, admiring the beautiful English children—“ not 


44 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


if 
Though England had no complete Bible before 


Wycliffe’s days, attempts were made from very 
early times to present the Scriptures in the lan- 
guage of the people, and the story of these ancient 
translations from the Latin manuscripts before us, 
forms certainly one of the most interesting though 
not most important portions of the history of the 
English Bible. 

It is now 1200 years since, on a winter night, a 
poor Saxon cowherd lay asleep in a stable of the 
famous Abbey of Whitby. Grieved and dispirited, 


he had come in from the feast where his masters, 


Angles, but angels,” said he, “if they were only Christians "— 
and the consequent sending of the Abbot Augustine to England 
with a band of Christian missionaries. It needs to be pointed 
out that, according to our best historians, this Roman mission 
soon lost its early ardor, penetrating little further than Kent, 
where it originally landed, and that the conversion of England, 
which had become completely pagan under Saxon rule, was for 
the most part left to the missionaries of the Irish Church. From 
St. Columb’s monastery at Iona the Irish preachers came, and 
travelled over the greater part of the country. Aidan, their 
leader, went through the wilds of Yorkshire and Northumbria 
with King Oswald as his interpreter, a former student of Iona 
—while Chad and Boisil led their little bands of missionaries 
through the centre of the heathen land, returning at stated 
periods to Lindisfarne, where Aidan had fixed his episcopal see. 
And not England only owes a debt to the Irish Church. As far 
off as the Apennines and the Alps the traces of her enthusiastic 
missionaries are found, and “for a time it seemed as if the 
course of the world’s history was to be changed, as if the older 
Celtic race, that Roman and German had swept before them, 
had turned to the moral conquest of their conquerors, as if Celtic 
and not Latin Christianity was to mould the destinies of the 
churches of the West.” (Green, History of the English People.) 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 45 


and some even of his companions, during the 
amusements of the night, had engaged in the easy, 
alliterative rhyming of those simple early days. 
But Czdmon could make no song,’ and his soul 
was very sad. Suddenly, as he lay, it seemed to 
him that a heavenly glory lighted up his stable, 
and in the midst of the glory One appeared who 
had been cradled in a manger six hundred years 
before. 

“Sing, Cedmon,” He said, “ sing some song 
to me.” 

“‘T cannot sing,”’ was the sorrowful reply, “ for 
this cause it is that I came hither.” 

“‘ Yet,” said He who stood before him, “ yet 
shalt thou sing to me.” 

“ What shall I sing?” 

“ The beginning of created things.” 

And as he listened, a divine power seemed to 
come on him, and words that he had never heard 
before rose up before his mind.* And so the 

7 Being at the feast, when all agreed for glee sake to sing in 
turn, he no sooner saw the harp come toward him, than he rose 
from the board and returned homeward.”—Account of Cedmon 
in Bede’s Eccl. Hist. 


* The words that came to the sleeper’s mind are recorded by 
King Alfred. They begin: 


“Now must we praise 
the grandeur of Heaven’s kingdom; 
the Creator’s might, 
and his mind’s thought; 
glorious father of men, 
The Lord the Eternal, 
who formed the beginning,” &e., &e. 


46 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


vision passed away. But the power remained 
with Cedmon, and in the morning the Saxon cow- 
herd went forth from the cattle-stalls transformed 
into a mighty poet! 

Hilda the abbess heard the wondrous tale, and 
from one of those Latin manuscripts she trans- 
lated to him a story of the Scriptures. Next day 
it was reproduced in a beautiful poem, followed 
by another and another as the spirit of the poet — 
grew powerful within him. Entranced, the abbess 
and the brethren heard, and they acknowledged 
the “ grace that had been conferred on him by the 
Lord.”’ ‘They bade him lay aside his secular 
habit and enter the monastic life, and from that 
day forward the Whitby cowherd devoted himself 
with enthusiasm to the task that had been set him 
in the vision. ‘‘ Others after him strove to com- 
pose religious poems, but none could vie with him, 
for he learned not the art of poetry from men, 
neither of men, but of God.” In earnest passion- 
ate words, which yet remain, he sung for the sim- 
ple people ‘‘ of the creation of the world, of the 
origin of man, and of all the history of Israel; of 
the Incarnation, and Passion, and Resurrection 
of Christ, and His Ascension; of the terror of 
future judgment, the horror of hell pains, and the 
joys of the kingdom of heaven.”’ * 


*Some account of Cedmon from Bede’s Eccl. Hist., translated 
into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred.”—Published by the Soctety of 
Antiquaries, London. 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 47 


Though his work has of course no right to rank 
among Bible translations, being merely an attempt 
to sing for the ignorant people the substance of 
the inspired story, yet we venture to give a brief 
extract, translated into modern English, telling of 
the appearance of Christ to His disciples after 
the resurrection: 


“What time the Lord God 
from death arose 
so strongly was no 
Satan armed 
though he were with iron 
all girt round 
that might that great 
force resist; 
for he went forth 
the Lord of angels, 
in the strong city, 
and bade fetch 
angels all bright 
and even bade say 
to Simon Peter 
that he might on Galilee 
behold God 
eternal and firm, 
as he ere did. 
Then as I understand, went 
the disciples together 
all to Galilee, 
inspired by the Spirit, 
The holy Son of God, 
whom they saw 


HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


were the Lord’s son. 

Then over against the disciples stood 
the Lord Eternal, 

God in Galilee, 

so that the disciples 

thither all ran 

Where the eternal was, 

fell on the earth, 

and at his feet bowed, 

thanking the Lord 

that thus it befell 

that they should behold 

the creator of angels. 

Then forthwith spake 

Simon Peter and said, 

Art thou thus, Lord, 

with power gifted? 

We saw thee 

at one time when 

they laid thee 

in loathsome bondage, 

the heathen with their hands. 
That they may rue 

when they their end ) 
shall behold hereafter. / 


He on the tree ascended 
and shed his blood, 

God on the cross 

through his Spirit’s power. 
Wherefore we should 

at all times 

give to the Lord thanks 
in deeds and works 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 49 


for that he us from thraldom 
led home 

up to Heaven, 

where we may share 

the greatness of God.” * 


9 8 


About the time of Cedmon’s death, early in the 
eighth century, the learned Eadhelm, bishop of 
Sherborne, was working in Glastonbury Abbey 
translating the Psalms of David into Anglo-Saxon, 
and at his request, it is said, Egbert, bishop of 
Holy Island, completed about the same time a 
version of the Gospels, of which a copy is still 
preserved in the British Museum. 


Ill. 


But the names of Eadhelm and Egbert are over- 
shadowed by that of a contemporary far greater 
than either. 

It was a calm peaceful evening in the spring of 
735—the evening of Ascension Day—and in his 
quiet cell in the monastery of Jarrow an aged 
monk lay dying. With labored utterance he tried 
to dictate to his scribe, while a group of fair- 
haired Saxon youths stood sorrowfully by, with 
tears beseeching their ‘‘ dear master ”’ to rest. 


*Thorpe’s “ Cadmon’s Paraphrase.”—Society of Antiquaries, 
London, 1832. 


50 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


That dying monk was the most famous scholar 
of his day in Western Europe. Through him 
Jarrow-on-the-Tyne had become the great centre 
of literature and science, hundreds of eager stu- 
dents crowding yearly to its halls to learn of the 
famous Beda. He was deeply versed in the liter- 
ature of Greece and Rome—he had written on 
medicine, and astronomy, and rhetoric, and most 
of the other known sciences of the time—his 
‘Ecclesiastical History ” is still the chief source 
of our knowledge of ancient England ;—but none 
of his studies were to him equal to the study of 
religion, none of his books of the same importance 
as his commentaries and sermons on Scripture. 
Even then as he lay on his deathbed he was feebly 
dictating to his scribe a translation of St. John’s 
Gospel. ‘I don’t want my boys to read a lie,” 
he said, “or to work to no purpose after I am 
gone.” 

And those “ boys’’ seem to have dearly loved 
the gentle old man. An epistle has come down to 
us from his disciple Cuthbert to a “ fellow 
reader ’’ Cuthwin, telling of what had happened 
this Ascension Day. ‘‘ Our father and master, 
whom God loved,” he says, “ had translated the 
Gospel of St. John as far as ‘what are these 
among so many,’ when the day came before Our 
Lord’s Ascension. 

‘‘ He began then to suffer much in his breath, 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 51 


and a swelling came in his feet, but he went on dic- 
tating to his scribe. ‘Go on quickly,’ he said, ‘ I 
know not how long I shall hold out, or how soon 
my Master will call me hence.’ 

‘* All night long he lay awake in thanksgiving, 
and when the Ascension Day dawned, he com- 
manded us to write with all speed what he had 
begun.” 

Thus the letter goes on affectionately, describ- 
ing the working and resting right through the day 
till the evening came, and then, with the setting sun 
gilding the windows of his cell, the old man lay 
feebly dictating the closing words. 

“There remains but one chapter, master,” said 
the anxious scribe, ‘‘ but it seems very hard for 
you to speak.” 

‘‘ Nay, it is easy,” Bede replied; “take up thy 
pen and write quickly.” 

Amid blinding tears the young scribe wrote on. 
‘** And now, father,” said he, as he eagerly caught 
the last words from his quivering lips, ‘‘ only one 
sentence remains.” Bede dictated it. 

“Tt is finished, master!” cried the youth, rais- 
ing his head as the last word was written. 

“ Ay, it is finished!’ echoed the dying saint; 
‘lift me up, place me at that window of my cell 
where I have so often prayed to God. Now glory 
be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 


92 HOW WE’GOT OUR BIBLE. 


Ghost!” and with these words the beautiful spirit 
passed to the presence of the Eternal Trinity. 


IV. 


Our next translator is no less a person than 
King Alfred the Great, whose patriotic wish has 
been so often quoted, “‘ that all the freeborn youth 
of his kingdom should employ themselves on noth- — 
ing till they could first read well the English 
Scripture.” * | 

A striking monument of his zeal for the Bible 
remains in the beginning of his Laws of England. 
The document is headed ‘‘ Alfred’s Dooms,” and 
begins thus: ‘‘ The dooms which the Almighty 
Himself spake to Moses, and gave him to keep, 
and after our Saviour Christ came to earth, He 
said He came not to break or forbid, but to keep 
them.”’ And then follow the Ten Commandments, 
in the forcible simple Anglo-Saxon terms, the first 
part of the ancient laws of England: f 


Drihten wes sprecende thes The Lord was speaking these 
word to Moyse and thus | words to Moses and thus said: 
cweth: 5; 

Ic eam Drihten thy God. Ic I am the Lord thy God. I 
the sit geledde of Aegypta | led thee out of the land of 
londe and of heora theowdome. | Egypt and its thralldom. 


At least so it is quoted, though the last words “Englisc 
ge-writ aredan” quite as probably mean “to read English 
writing.’ See Eadie’s Bibl. Hist., i. 13. 


EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 53 


Ne lufa thu othre fremde 

godas ofer me. 
® * % ¥ a 

Ara thinum feder and thinre 
meder tha the Drihten sealde 
the, that thu sy thy leng lib- 
bende on eorthan. 
_ Ne slea thu. 

Ne stala thu. 

Ne lige thu dearnunga. 

Ne sege thu lease gewitnesse 
with thinum nehstan. 

Ne wilna thu thines nehstan 
yifes mid unrihte. 

Ne wyrc thu the gyldene 
godas ohthe seolfrene. 


Love thou not other strange 

gods over me. 
* 8 * ® * 

Honor thy father and thy 
mother whom the Lord gave 
thee, that thou be long living 
on earth. 

Slay not thou. 

Steal not thou. 

Commit not thou adultery. 

Say not thou false witnesa 
against thy neighbor. 

Desire not thou thy neigh- 
bor’s inheritance with unright. 

Work not thou the golden 
gods or silvern. 


Here is the Lord’s Prayer of King Alfred’s 
time, and side by side with it the Lord’s Prayer 
in early English three hundred years afterward: 


Uren Fader dhis art in 
heofnas, 

Sic gehalged dhin noma, 

To cymedh dhin ric, 

Sic dhin uuilla sue is in 
heofnas and in eardho, 

Vren hlaf ofer uuirthe sel vs 
to daeg, 

And forgef us scylda urna, 

Sue uue forgefan sculdgun 
vrum, 

And no inleadh vridk in cost- 
nung al gefrig vrich from ifle. 


Fader oure that art in heve, 


I-halgeed be thi nome, 

I-cume thi kinereiche, 

Y-worthe thi wylle also ts ° 
in hevene so be on erthe, 

Our iche-days-bred gif us 
to-day, 

And forgif us oure gultes, 

Also we forgifet oure gul- 
tare, 

And ne led ows nowth into 
fondyngge, Auth ales ows of 
harme, 

So be hit. 


54 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


Alfred also engaged in a translation of the 
Psalms, which, with the Gospels, seemed the 
favorite Scriptures of the people; but, unlike his 
great predecessor, Bede, he died before his task 
was finished. 


Vv. 


Archbishop Aelfric, and a few other translat-— 
turs, appear about the close of the tenth century, 
but there is no need of describing their works in 
detail. As far as we can judge from the existing 
manuscripts, most of these early Bible translations 
were intended for reading in the churches to the 
people, and their simple expressive terms made 
them very easily understood. For example, a cen- 
turion was a “* hundred-man,’’ a disciple a “ leorn- 
ing cnight,”’ or “ learning youth; ”’ “ the man with 
the dropsy,”’ is translated as “the water-seoc- 
man,’ the Sabbath as ‘‘the reste daeg”’ (rest 
day), and the woman who put her mites in the 
treasury, is said to have cast them into the “ gold- 
hoard.”’ * 

On the opposite page is a photograph of Arch- 
bishop Aelfric’s Anglo-Saxon Bible. It is taken 
from a beautiful copy in the Cottonian Library. 
It contains many curious miniatures as for example 
the Creation of Eve who is represented as being 

* See Forshall and Madden’s Anglo-Saxon Gospels. 


‘AUNLNAD HLIT “ATaId NOXVS-OTONV SOIATAV dOHSIGHDYV 


eee -uvguoado auio 
ee ngalaeservaty -attrDI02 U 


uuu agjoaat ng ae bt Lay Xer 
os ane qaqvdiardiy *auivo0n uxnyrg qodoo(l 


[ ‘vibyogl XB 
We, ai Was, h | jou unity Say apd Lagging eqn “ypdo gor) 


Ae 
Z 

i Ws : 

y : 

e 

Ay ie .& 


; ® 
5 
: Oi 


G/ Moy : 


Y/ IF Uiouog PL 
Raley SPUD 








es 


oF 
¥ 
“4 


i a ve . 4 4 be 
neh me ole ida) ae is 
bs 'y ,Y * 5 zh —_ bi4 
o ‘ wr 

s ay v¢ 





EARLY ENGLISH VERSIONS. 55 


drawn out of an opening amongst Adam’s ribs. 
The miniature which we reproduce represents the 
expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and 
their being taught by an angel to till the ground. 
Below it is photographed a verse from a later page 
(Gen. iv. 9, 10). It is interesting to notice in this 
passage that almost every word of its Anglo- 
Saxon is still represented in our present English: 


Tha cweth Drihten to Caine hwaer is Abel 
Then quoth the Lord to Cain where is Abel 


thin brothor: tha andswarode he & cweth 
thy brother: then answered he & quoth 


is nat, segst thu sceolde is minne brothor &c. 
I know not, sayest thou should I my brother Gc. 


The following is a New Testament specimen 
from Forshall and Madden’s Anglo-Saxon 
Gospels. 


St. MATT. vii. 26, 27. 


And aelc thaera the gehyrath thas mine word 
And each of them that ge-heareth these mine words 


and tha ne wyrcth se bith gelic thon 
and that not worketh (them) he beeth ge-like that 


dysigan man tha getimbrode hys hus ofer 
foolish (dizzy) man that timbered his house over 


56 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


sand-ceosel. Tha rinde hyt and thaer comun flod 
sand-gravel. Thenrained it and there come flood 


and bleowun windas and ahruron on thon hus, 
and blew winds and rushed on _ that house, 


and that hus feoll and hys hryre wees mycel. 
and that house fell and his fall was mickle. 


CHAPTER V. 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 


I. Growth of the Language. II. The Parish Priest of Lutter- 
worth. III. The State of the Church. IV. The Bible for 
the people. V. Wycliffe as a Reformer. VI. His Death. 
VII. His Bible. VIII. Results of his Work. 


WE pass over six hundred silent years. 

After the early Anglo-Saxon versions comes a 
long pause in the history of Bible translation. 
Amid the disturbance resulting from the Danish 
invasion there was little time for thinking of trans- 
lations and manuscripts; and before the land had 
fully regained its quiet the fatal battle of Hastings 
had been fought, and England lay helpless at the 
feet of the Normans. The higher Saxon clergy 
were replaced by the priests of Normandy, who 
had little sympathy with the people over whom 
they were placed, and the Saxon manuscripts were 
contemptuously flung aside as relics of a rude bar- 
barism. The contempt shown to the language of 
the defeated race quite destroyed the impulse to 
English translation, and the Norman clergy had 
no sympathy with the desire for spreading the 

57 


58 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


knowledge of the Scriptures among the people, so 
that for centuries those Scriptures remained in 
England a “ spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” 
Yet this time must not be considered altogether 
lost, for during those centuries England was 
becoming fitted for an English Bible. The future 
language of the nation was being formed; the 
Saxon and Norman French were struggling side 
by side; gradually the old Saxon grew unintelli- 
gible to the people; gradually the French became 
a foreign tongue, and with the fusion of the two 
races a language grew up which was the language 


of United England.* | 


*“Tn tracing the history of the change from Anglo-Saxon to 
modern English it is impossible to assign any precise dates by 
which we can mark the origin of this change, or the principal 
epochs of its progress, or its completion. This necessarily results 
from the very gradual nature of the change itself; we might as 
well ask at what moment a child becomes a youth, or a youth a 
man; or when the plant becomes a tree. So gradual was the 
change, that, to adopt the language of Hallam, ‘When we com- 
pare the earliest English of the thirteenth century with the 
Anglo-Saxon of the twelfth, it seems hard to prenounce why it 
should pass for a separate language rather than a modification 
and simplification of the former.’ Still, for the sake of conveni- 
ence, we may fix on certain dates somewhere about which the 
change commenced or was effected. About 1150, or a little less 
than a century after the Conquest, may be dated the decline of 
pure Saxon; about 1250, or a century later, the commencement 
of English. During the intervening century the language has 
been called by many of our writers semi-Saxon.”—=H. Rogers in 
Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1850. 

It was toward the end of the fourteenth century that English 
began to be the language of literature. “Sir John Mandeville’s 
Travels,” one of the earliest English books, appeared in 1356, 
and Chaucer wrote toward the close of the century; therefore 
Wycliffe’s Bible in 1383 was about as early as a version could 
be which was to retain its place among the English people. 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 59 


IT. 


Passing, then, from the quiet deathbeds of 
Alfred and Bede, we transfer ourselves to the 
great hall of the Blackfriars’ Monastery, London, 
on a day in May, 1378, amid purple robes and 
gowns of satin and damask, amid monks and 
abbots, and bishops and doctors of the Church, 
assembled for the trial of John Wycliffe, the 
parish priest of Lutterworth. 

The great hall, crowded to its heavy oaken 
doors, witnesses to the interest that is centred in 
the trial, and all eyes are fixed on the pale stern 
old man who stands before the dais silently facing 
his judges. He is quite alone, and his thoughts 
go back, with some bitterness, to his previous trial, 
when the people crowded the doors shouting for 
their favourite, and John of Gaunt and the Lord 
Marshal of England were standing by his side. 
He has learned since then not to put his trust in 
princes. The power of his enemies has grown 
rapidly, even the young King has been won over . 
to their cause, and patrons and friends have drawn 
back from the side of him whom the Church has 
resolved to crush. 

The judges have taken their seats, and the 
accused stands awaiting the charges to be read, 
when suddenly there is a quick cry of terror, A 


60 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


strange rumbling sound fills the air, and the walls 
of the judgment-hall are trembling to their base 
—the monastery and the city of London are being 
shaken by an earthquake! Friar and prelate grow 
pale with superstitious awe. Twice already has 
the arraignment of Wycliffe been strangely inter- 
rupted. Are the elements in league with this 
troubler of the Church? Shall they give up the 
trial? 7 

“No!” thunders Archbishop Courtenay, rising 
in his place, ‘‘ We will not give up the trial. This 
earthquake but portends the purging of the king- 
dom; for as there are in the bowels of the earth 
noxious vapors which only by a violent earthquake 
can be purged away, so are there evils brought 
by such men upon this land which only by a very 
earthquake can ever be removed. Let the trial go 
forward!” 


III. 


We pause in this place to try to understand the 
position of the Church of England at this time, 
and the fact that we have here under censure by 
that Church the man who was giving to England 
her first complete Bible. 

It was a critical time in the history of the 
English Church. We have evidence of much sim- 
ple godliness, of real religion, and of many faith- 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 61 


ful priests all over the land quietly bringing the 
blessings of religion to their flocks. But it was in 
the main an age of ignorance and superstition and 
of worldly ambition in the high places of the 
Church. Chaucer and other writers of the time 
give us graphic pictures of its mingled good and 
evil. ‘The clergy were in the main poorly edu- 
cated. The Friars who at their first coming had 
been such a power for good with their ideals of 
holiness and voluntary poverty, and the popular 
enthusiasm roused by their preaching, had now in 
the course of time become degraded into idle 
vagrants and imposters extorting money by the 
selling of pardons and relics, “ as if,” to quote the 
words of an old writer, “‘ God had given His sheep 
not to be pastured but to be shaven and shorn.” 
The Roman See, too, was encroaching more and 
more on the liberties of the Church of England 
and rousing the ancient spirit of the Barons’ Char- 
ter at Runnymede, ‘Ecclesia Anglicana libera 
sit.” ‘The Church of England must be free.” 
A hostile spirit was growing in the nation a spirit 
which might easily turn from hostility to the 
Papacy to hostility toward religion itself. 

The times were critical and those who could 
discern the signs of the times must have seen now 
that things could not go on much longer as they 
were. For education was rapidly increasing, sev- 
eral new colleges having been founded in Oxford 


62 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. | 


during Wycliffe’s lifetime. A strong spirit of inde- 
pendence, too, was rising among the people— 
already Edward III. and his Parliament had in- 
dignantly refused the Pope’s demand for the 
annual tribute to be sent to Rome. It was evident 
that a crisis was near. And, as if to hasten the 
crisis, the famous schism of the Papacy had placed 
two Popes at the head of the Church, and all 
Christendom was scandalized by the sight of the 
rival ‘‘ vicars of Jesus Christ”? anathematizing 
each other from Rome and Avignon, raising 
armies and slaughtering helpless women and chil- 
dren, each for the aggrandizement of himself. 


IV. 


Chief amongst the leaders of the patriotic agi- 
tation against Roman aggression was John Wyc- 
liffe. He was a famous scholar and leader of 
thought in university circles as well as amongst 
the populace, and a beautiful life of devotion and 
self-sacrifice consecrated his great learning. He 
had a powerful following, John of Gaunt, the 
Duke of Lancaster, being one of his staunch sup- 
porters. And he used his great influence not only 
against external aggressions from the Papacy but 
also against internal corruptions in the Church of 
England itself. Looking back now on certain 
periods of his career one is inclined to wonder that 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 63 


the English Reformation of 200 years later did 
not come in Wycliffe’s day. 

His sermons were a great power. His vigorous 
pamphlets were sent in all directions. He had 
organized his band of “ poor priests,” somewhat 
on the model of the original friars, to spread the 
teaching of the Gospel through the land. But 
immeasurably above all other influences was the 
splendid project of giving to his Church and 
nation the first complete Bible in the language of 
the people. Wycliffe was a most devoted student 
of Scripture. It was his constant companion, his 
absolute standard of appeal, and he shows the 
most intimate acquaintance with its text. In one 
single volume he has seven hundred quotations 
from Scripture, and it was his contemporaries’ 
recognition of his reverence for it that gained for 
him the title of the Evangelical Doctor. Natu- 
rally such a man would feel that at such a time the 
firmest charter of the Church would be the open 
Bible in her children’s hands; the best exposure 
of the Papal policy, the exhibiting to the people 
the beautiful self-forgetting life of Jesus Christ 
as recorded in the Gospels. ‘‘ The Sacred Scrip- 
tures,” he said, ‘‘ are the property of the people, 
and one which no one should be allowed to wrest 
from them. . . . Christ and His apostles con- 
verted the world by making known the Scriptures 
to men in a form familiar to them, . . . and I 


64 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. | 


pray with all my heart that through doing the 
things contained in this book we may all together 
come to the everlasting life.”’ This Bible transla- 
tion he placed far the first in importance of all his 
attempts to reform the English Church, and he 
pursued his object with a vigor and against an 
opposition that reminds one of the old monk of 


Bethlehem and his Bible a thousand years before. — 


V. 


‘And yet it must be frankly acknowledged that 
John Wycliffe was not the man to accomplish a 
reform in the Church of England. He had great 
qualities, but he had the defects of his great quali- 
ties. He was a born fighter and England sorely 
needed such at the time. But like many another 
great fighter he was rather destructive than con- 
structive. He was better at attacking faults than 
at laying down a practical scheme of Church 
reform such as would appeal to sensible men. ~ 

It would be utterly unfair to blame him for the 
wild teaching of his followers after his death. But 
he was an incautious teacher. And as he grew 
older opposition tended to make him extreme and 
one-sided. He became almost an anti-clerical. if 
he had his way he would have made a clean sweep 
of much of the ministerial forms and ancient 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 65 


usages of the Church. From attacking the faults 
of certain bishops he went on to attack the insti- 
tution of episcopacy itself. He laid little stress 
on Baptism, though he did splendid work in vindi- 
cating the position of Holy Communion. He 
spoke slightingly of the accustomed ritual of the 
Church service, and some of his writings would 
almost suggest that his ideal of a church would be 
just a set of wandering preachers of the Gospel, 
and not necessarily very well educated preachers 
either, for in his later years he spoke slightingly 
even of learning in the clergy. ‘‘ The Apostles,” 
he says, ‘‘had no college degrees.” However 
deeply we sympathize with Wycliffe’s ideals and 
self-devotion yet looking back now, one sees the 
grave probability that a Reformation carried out 
on his lines would have been dangerous to the con- 
tinuity of the Church itself. 

It is necessary to think of this if we would judge 
quite fairly the opposition of the leading English 
Churchmen to Wycliffe and his Bible. It is quite 
true that many of them were unspiritual men. It 
4s quite true too that there was a strong prejudice 
against the innovation of spreading the Bible 
freely amongst the “ignorant laity.”’ One of the 
charges against Wycliffe was that he had made the 
Bible common and more open to laymen and even 
to women (!) than it was wont to be to clergy 
well learned and of good understanding, so that 


66 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


the pearl of the Gospel is trodden under foot of 
swine.” 

But it is only fair to say that in this case there 
was also a strong suspicion of the translator and 
fear of his theological ideas manifesting itself in 
his translation. We can see now that this sus- 
picion was unfounded. But the suspicion was 
there. Perhaps a wiser and more tactful reformer 
who could win the confidence of his brother — 
Churchmen might have made very different the, 
story of the first English Bible. But indomitable 
courage was the chief thing needed just then and 
it would have been a very unusual type of man 
who, fighting sternly the dark abuses of that day, 
could have accurately kept his balance. 


VI. 


The result of the trial at Blackfriars was that 
after three days’ deliberation Wycliffe’s teaching 
was condemned and at a subsequent meeting he 
himself was excommunicated. But he was allowed 
to return to his quiet parsonage at Lutterworth, 
for his opponents did not care to proceed to ex- 
tremities and there with his pile of old Latin 
manuscripts and commentaries he laboured on at 
finishing the great work of his life till the whole 
Bible was translated into the “ modir tonge,”’ and 
“England received for the first time in her history a - 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 67 


complete version of the Scriptures* in the lan- 
guage of the people. 

And scarce was his task well finished when, like 
his great predecessor Bede, the brave old priest 
laid down his life. He himself had expected that 
a violent death would have finished his course. 
His enemies were many and powerful; the pri- 
mate, the king, and the Pope were against him, 
with the friars, whom he had so often and so 
fiercely defied;* so that his destruction seemed but 


1This honour has by some been denied to Wycliffe, chiefly on 
' the authority of Sir Thomas More. “Ye schall understande,” 
he says, “that ye great arch heretike John Wycliffe, whereas 
y¢ Holy Bible was long before his dayes by vertuous and well 
lerned men translated into y¢ Englische tong and by good and 
godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently 
read, tooke upon him of malicious purpose to translate it anew. 
In whiche translacioun he purposely corrupted y€ Holy Text, 
maliciously planting therein such wordes as might in y® reders’ 
eres serve to the profe of such heresies as he was aboute to 
sowe. . . . Myself haue seen and can shew you Bibles fayre 
and olde, : written in Englische, which have been known and 
seen by y¢ bischop of ye dyoces and left in lemen’s hands and 
women’s.” 

However, he gives us no means of testing his statement, and 
the fullest investigation gives no trace of anything but separate 
fragments of Scripture before Wycliffe’s time. Perhaps Sir 
Thomas More had seen some of Wycliffe’s own copies, and mis- 
took them for the work of another and earlier writer, or more 
probably the statement was made hastily and without proper 
foundation. A few partial translations had been accomplished 
in the century before Wycliffe by Scorham, Rolle of Hampole, 
and others, but they were little known. Wycliffe’s great com- 
plaint is that there is no English translation of the Scriptures. 

2The scene has frequently been described of the friars press- 
ing round what seemed the deathbed of their old assailant, 
adjuring him to recant and receive their absolution, and the 
stern old man raising himself suddenly to startle them with his 
fierce prophetic cry, “I shall not die, but live to declare again 
the evil deeds of the friars!” 


68 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


a mere question of time. But while his friends 
were anxiously anticipating the worst, the old man 
‘was not, for God took him.” 

It was the close of the Old Year, the last Sun- 
day of 1384, and his little flock at Lutterworth 
were kneeling in hushed reverence before the 
altar, when suddenly, at the time of the elevation 
of the Sacrament, he fell to the ground in a violent 
fit of the palsy, and never spoke again until his 
death on the last day of the year. 

In him England lost one of her best and great- 
est sons, a patriot sternly resenting all dishonour 
to his country, a reformer who ventured his life 
for the purity of the Church and the freedom of 
the Bibles an earnest, faithful ‘‘ parsoun of a 
toune’”’ standing out conspicuously among the 
clergy of the time, 


“For Christé’s lore and his apostles twelve 
He taughte—and first he folwede it himselve.” ? 


A horrible comment on the intolerant spirit of 
the time is this extract from one of the monkish 
writers of the time describing his death:—* On 
the feast of the passion of St. Thomas of Canter- 
bury, John Wycliffe, the organ of the devil, the 
enemy of the Church, the idol of heretics, the 


4 Chaucer’s Prologue, 527. The whole of that exquisite descrip- 
tion of the “parsoun” is supposed to refer to Wycliffe, whose 
teaching the poet had warmly embraced. 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 6% 


image of hypocrites, the restorer of schism, the 
storehouse of lies, the sink of flattery, being struck 
by the horrible judgment of God, was seized with 
the palsy throughout his whole body, and that 
mouth which was to have spoken huge things 
against God and His saints, and holy Church, was 
miserably drawn aside, and afforded a frightful 
spectacle to beholders; his tongue was speechless 
and his head shook, showing plainly that the curse 
which God had thundered forth against Cain was 
also inflicted on him.”’ 

Some time after his death a petition was pre- 
sented to the Pope, which to his honour he 
rejected, praying him to order Wyclitte’s body to 
be taken out of consecrated ground and buried 
in a dung-hill. But forty years after, by a decreé 
of the Council of Constance, the old Reformer’s 
bones were dug up and burned, and the ashes flung 
into the little river’ Swift, which ‘‘ runneth hard 
by his church at Lutterworth.’ And so, in the 
oft-quoted words of old Fuller, ‘‘as the Swift 
bare them into the Severn, and the Severn into 
the narrow seas, and they again into the ocean, 
thus the ashes of Wycliffe is an emblem of his 
teaching, which is now dispersed over all the 
world.” 


70 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


VII. 


_ But it is with his Bible translation that we are 
specially concerned. As far as we can learn, the 
whole Bible was not translated by the Reformer. 
About half the Old Testament is ascribed to 
Nicholas de Hereford,’ one of the Oxford leaders 
of the Lollards, the remainder, with the whole of 
the New Testament, being done by Wycliffe him- 
self. About eight years after its completion the 
whole was revised by Richard Purvey, his curate 
and intimate friend, whose manuscript is still in 
the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Purvey’s 
preface is a most interesting old document, and 
shows not only that he was deeply in earnest about 
his work, but that he thoroughly understood the 
intellectual and moral conditions necessary for its 

success. 
‘“ A simpel creature,” he says, “ hath translated 


*He appears to have stopped abruptly in the middle of the 
verse (Baruch iii. 20), probably at the time of his seizure for 
heresy. Here is a specimen of his translation, Psalm xxiii. :— 
“The Lord gouerneth me and no thing to me shal lacke; in the 
place of leswe where he me ful sette. Ouer watir of fulfilling 
he nurshide me; my soule he conuertide. He broghte down 
upon me the sties of rightwiseness; for his name. For whi and 
if I shal go in the myddel of the shadewe of deth; I shal not 
dreden euelis, for thou art with me. Thi yerde and thi staf; 
the han confortid me. Thou hast maad redi in thi sighte 2 
bord; aghen them that trublyn me. Thou hast myche fatted m 
oile myn hed and my chalis makende ful drunken, hou right cler 
it is. And thi mercy shall vnderfolewe me; alle the dayis of 
my lif. And that I dwelle in the hous of the Lord in to the 
lengthe of dayis.” ; 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. | 71 


the Scripture out of Latin into Englische. First, 
this simpel creature had much travayle with divers 
fellows and helpers to gather many old Bibles and 
other doctors and glosses to make one Latin Bible 
some deal true and then to study it anew the texte 
and any other help he might get, especially Lyra 
on the Old Testament, which helped him much 
with this work. ‘The third time to counsel with ~ 
olde grammarians and divines of hard words and 
hard sentences how they might best be under- 
stood and translated, the fourth time to translate 
as clearly as he could to the sense, and to have 
many good fellows and cunnyng at the correcting 
of the translacioun. . . . A translator hath great 
nede to studie well the sense both before and after, 
and then also he hath nede to live a clene life and 
be full devout in preiers, and have not his wit occu- 
pied about worldli things that the Holy Spyrit 
author of all wisdom and cunnynge and truthe 
dresse him for his work and suffer him not to err.” 
And he concludes with the prayer, “ God grant to 
us all grace to ken well and to kepe well Holie 
Writ, and to suffer joiefulli some paine for it at 
the laste.” 

Like all the earlier English ‘translations, Wyc- 
liffe’s Bible was only a translation of a translation. 
It was based on the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome; 
and this is the great defect in his work, as com- 
pared with the versions that followed. He was 


72 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE.» 


not capable of consulting the original Greek and 
Hebrew even if he had access to them—in fact, 
there was probably no man in England at the time 
capable of doing so; and therefore, though he 
represents the Latin faithfully and well, the Ver- 
sion had grown corrupted in the course of trans- 
mission and he of course handed on its errors as 
faithfully as its perfections. But, such as it ts, it 
is a fine specimen of fourteenth century English. 
He translated not for scholars nor for nobles, but 
for the plain people, and his style was such as 
suited those for whom he wrote—plain, vigorous, 
homely, and yet with all its homeliness full of a 
solemn grace and dignity, which made men feel 
that they were reading no ordinary book. He 
uses many striking expressions, such as 2 Tim. 
ii. 4, “No man _ holding knighthood to God, 
wlappith himself with worldli nedes;’’ and many 
of the best-known phrases in our present Bible 
originated with him, e. g., “the beame and the 
mote,” ‘“‘ the depe thingis of God,” “ strait is the 
gate and narewe is the waye,”’ “no but a man 
schall be born againe,” “the cuppe of blessing 
which we blessen,”’ &c., &c. 

On the opposite page we give a specimen from. 
Wycliffe’s Gospels, and it will be an interesting 
illustration of the growth of our language to com- _ 
pare it, on the one hand, with the specimens 400 
years earlier given in the previous chapter, and 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 73 


on the other with the present Revised Version, 
which is later in date by 500 years. The resem- 
blance to the latter will be still more marked if the 
sound only is followed, disregarding the spelling. 


Matt. m. 1-6.—!n thilke dapes came Foon 
Baptist prechpnge in the desert of Jude, 
saying, Do pe penaunce: for the kyngdom 
of benens shall neigh. Forsothe this is 
be of whom it is said bp Dsaype the proe 
phete, H voice of a crpinge in desert, Make 
pe redp the wayes of the Lord, make pe 
rightful the patbes of bpm. Forsotbe 
that ilke Joon badde cloth of the beeris of 
cameplis and a gitdil of skyn about bis 
leendis; sotbelp bis mete weren locustis 
and bony of the wode. Channe Ferusas 
lem wente out fo bpm, and al Jude, and al 
the cuntre aboute Jordan, and thei weren 
_ crpstened of bym in Jordan, Rnowlecbpnge 
there spnnes. 

_ It is somewhere recorded that at a meeting in 
Yorkshire recently a long passage of Wrycliffe’s 


Bible was read, which was quite intelligible 
throughout to those who heard it. 


74 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE 


It will be seen that this specimen is not divided 
into verses. Verse division belongs to 2 mach 
later period. and though convenient for refer 
ence, it sometimes spoils the semse 2 good deal. 
The division imto chapters appears m Wydifie’s 
as in our own Bibles. This chapter division had 
shortly before been made by 2 Cardinz] Hapo= 
for the purpose of 2 Latim Concordance, and is 
convenience brought i quickly mto use. Bat, ike 
the verse division, it is oiten very badly donr, the 
object aimed at seeming to be uniformity of length 
rather than any natural division of the sabject* 
Sometimes a chapter breaks off in the middle of < 
narfrative or 2n argument, and, especally m Se 
Paul's epistles, the moorrect division often beoumes 
misleading. The removal as far 2s possible of 
these divisions is one of the advantages of the 
Revised Version as will be noticed inter on. 


ae ses Oe es ee Seep zzz We 
owe it tw Robert Stephen, the oclebrered ede ea &@e Gok 





— = 


VIL 


The beok had z wery wide creuiztion ~4While 
the Angic-Saxzom versioms were comimed for the 


© pore priestes.™ Ai comsiderzble sum wes paid for 
even 2 few sheets of the manuscript. z load of key 
Was govern for permmssiom to read it for = cortzm 
permed ene hour 2 dzy.* and those who could not 


' 
76 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


afford even such expense adopted what means they 
could. It is touching to read such incidents as that 
of one Alice Collins, sent for to the little gather- 
ings “to recite the ten commandments and parts 
of the Epistles of SS. Paul and Peter, which she 
knew by. heart.” ‘ Certes,” says old John Foxe 
in his “ Book of Martyrs,” ‘the zeal of those 
Christian days seems much superior to this of our 
day, and to see the travail of them may well shame 
our careless times.”’ 
But such study was carried on at considerable 
risk. The appearance of Wycliffe’s Bible aroused 
at once fierce opposition. A bill was brought into 
Parliament to forbid the circulation of the Scrip- 
tures in English; but the sturdy John of Gaunt. 
vigorously asserted the right of the people to have 
the Word of God in their own tongue; “ for 
why,” said he, ‘‘ are we to be the dross of the 
nations?’ However, the rulers of the Church 
were determined to prevent the circulation of the 
book. Archbishop Arundel, a zealous but not very 
learned prelate, complained to the Pope of “‘ that 
pestilent wretch, John Wycliffe, the son of the old 
Serpent, the forerunnner of Antichrist, who had 


entitled to what he had written. The dispute was referred to 
Diarmad the king at Tara, and his decision (genuinely Irish) 
was given in St. Finian’s favor. “To every book,” said he, 
“belongs its son-book (copy), as to every cow belongs her calf.” 
Columb complained of the decision as unjust, and the dispute is 
said to have been one of the causes of his leaving Ireland for 
Iona (see note, p. 43). 


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WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 77 


completed his iniquity by inventing a new transla- 
tion of the Scriptures;” and shortly after, the 
Convocation of Canterbury forbade such transla- 
tions, under penalty of the major excommuni- 
cation. 

“God grant us,” runs the prayer in the old 
Wycliffe Bible preface, “to ken and to kepe well 
Holie Writ, and to suffer joiefulli some paine for 
it at the laste.” What a meaning that prayer 
must have gained when the readers of the book 
were burned with the copies round their necks, 
when husbands were made to witness against their 
wives, and children forced to light the death-fires 
of their parents, and possessors of the banned 
Wycliffe Bible were hunted down as if they were 
wild beasts. 

It is difficult to estimate the silent influence of 
the Wycliffe Bible during the following century 
on the Church and nation of England, or how 
much it counts as a remote cause of the great 
movement of the Reformation. Though banned 
and proscribed it must have largely leavened 
the spirit of the people. There is a marvel- 
lous quickening power in the inspired Word 
of God secretly working in the springs of 
national life, and up to this time England 
had it only in very fragmentary form. An 
open Bible spreads a wholesome light in which 
errors and corruptions have to flee away. It is, 


78 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


to use a simile of a graceful modern writer,’ as 
when you raise with your staff an old flat stone, 
with the grass forming a little hedge, as it were, 
around it as it lies. ‘‘ Beneath it, what a revela- 
tion! Blades of grass flattened down, colorless, 
matted together, as if they had been bleached and 
ironed; hideous crawling things; black crickets 
with their long filaments sticking out on all sides; 
motionless, slug-like creatures; young larve, per- 
haps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than in 
the infernal wriggle of maturity. But no sooner 
is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day 
let in on this compressed and blinded community 
of creeping things than all of them that have legs 
rush blindly about, butting against each other and 
everything else in their way, and end in a general 
stampede to underground retreats from the region 
poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the 
grass growing fresh and green where the stone 
lay—the ground bird builds her nest where the 
beetle had his hole, the dandelion and the butter- 
cup are growing there, and the broad fans of 
insect-angels open and shut over their golden discs 
as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness 
pulsate through their glorified being. 

‘* The stone is ancient error, the grass is human 
nature borne down and bleached of all its color by 


oe Wendell Holmes, in the “ Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
table.” 


WYCLIFFE’S VERSION. 79 


it. He who turns the stone is whosoever puts the 
staff of truth to the old lying incubus, whether he 
do it with a serious face or a laughing one. The 
next year stands for the coming time. Then 
shall the nature which had lain blanched and 
broken rise in its full stature and native lines 
in the sunshine. Then shall God’s minstrels build 
their nests in the hearts of a newborn humanity. 
Then shall beauty—divinity taking outline and 
color—light upon the souls of men as the butter- 
fly, image of the beatified spirit rising from the 
dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub, 
which would never have found wings unless that 
stone had been lifted.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 


I. Printing. II. The Renaissance. III. William Tyndale. IV. 
The first printed New Testament. V. Clerical Opposition. 
VI. The Bible and the Church. VII. Two Types of 
Reformers. VIII. Pakington and the Bishop. IX. Scene 
at St. Edwards. X. The Death of Tyndale. XI. The Tyn- 
dale Bible. 


AFTER Wycliffe there is an interval of a hun- 
dred years before we come to the next great ver- 
sion of the Bible, but in that interval occurred 
what, more than any other event that ever hap- 
pened, has affected the history of the English 
Bible, and indeed the history of the English nation 
altogether. Up to this time in wild Iona, in the 
monasteries of ancient Britain, in the great homes 
of learning through the continent of Europe, men 
and women sat in the silence of their cells slowly 
copying out letter by letter the pages of the Scrip- 
ture manuscripts, watching patiently month after 
month the volumes grow beneath their hands. But 
with Wycliffe’s days this toilsome manuscript 
period closes forever. 
~|~~“‘About twenty years after the death of Wycliffe 
there was living in the old German town of Mentz 

80 


& 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. SI 


a boy bearing the not very attractive name of 
Johann Gensfleisch, which means, put into plain 
English, John Gooseflesh. His mother was a 
dresser of parchments for the writing of manu- 
scripts. One morning—so runs the story—he 
had been cutting the letters of his name out of the 
bark of a tree, and having been left alone in the 
house soon after, amused himself by spreading 
out the letters on a board so as to form again 
the words, 


JZJobann Gensfleisch. 


A pot of purple dye was beside the fire, and by 
some awkward turn one of his letters droped into 
it. Quickly, without stopping to think, he snatched 
it out of the boiling liquid, and as quickly let it 
drop again, this time on a white dressed skin 
which lay on a bench near by, the result being a 
beautiful purple ) on a deep yellowish white 
ground. Whether the boy admired the beautiful 
marks on the skin or meditated ruefully of future 
marks on his own skin as a possible consequence 
history does not record, but it would seem as if | 
somehow that image rooted itself in his mind, to 
bear rich fruit on a future day. For, thirty years © 
afterward, when all Germany was ringing with 
the name of Johann Gutenberg, and his magical 


g2 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. | 


art of printing, the good people of Mentz recog: 
nized in the inventor their young townsman Gens- 
fleisch, who had meantime taken his maternal 
name.* Whatever truth there may be in the 
legend, certain it is that Gutenberg’s printing press 
was working in Mentz about the year 1450, and 
the first completed book that issued from that 
press is said to have been the Latin Bible.’ 

This is not the place to tell what has been so 
often told already of the immense influence of this 
new invention on the progress of knowledge in the — 
world. We have but to do with its effects as mani- 
fested in the history of the Bible, and for this it 
will be sufficient to remark that the Bible which 
took Wyckliffe’s copyists ten months to prepare 
can now be produced by a single London firm at 
the rate of 120 per hour, that is, two.copies every 
minute; while, for cost of production, we may 
compare the Wycliffe Bible at a price equal to £40 
of our money,® with a New Testament complete 


*He was the son of Frilo Gensfleisch and Elsie Gutenberg. 
The German law recognized in certain cases this taking of the 
maternal name, 

*It is known as the Mazarin Bible, from the fact that a copy 
ef it was found about a century ago in Cardinal Mazarin’s 
library at Paris. 

*Mr. Froude (“ Hist. Eng.) has some interesting pages to 
show the value of money in those days. A pig or a goose was 
bought for 4d., a chicken for 1d., a hen for 2d.; land was let at 
8d. per acre; laborers were hired at 1d. per day; the stipend 
of a parish priest was £5, 6s. 8d. a year; and Bradford, the 
martyr, writes of his fellowship at Oxford, “It is worth £7 a 
year to me, so you see what a good lord God is to me.” 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 83 


in paper covers that has lately been published for 
one penny! 


II. 


Now mark the coincidence. At the very same 
time, almost in the very same year, occurred an- 
other event which in God’s providence largely 
influenced the history of Bible translation. 

In November, 1454, came the invention af 
movable type in printing. In May, 1454, came 
the fall of Constantinople, and crowds of Greek 
scholars were driven for refuge to Western 
Europe, teaching the language of the rediscovered 
classics, and more important for this story, the 
language in which the New Testament was writ- 
ten. The great movement of ‘‘ The Renaissance.” 
had come, the revival of learning in Europe free- 
ing men’s minds from ignorance and men’s spirits 
from blind obedience to despotism, and one of its 
most important factors was this revival of Greek 
learning. 

The reader will remember that up to this time 
our pile of ancient ‘‘ MANUSCRIPTS,” i. e., Scrip- 
tures in their original language, remains un- 
touched, the earlier English Scriptures being trans- 
lated, not from the original Hebrew and Greek, 
but from Latin versions which themselves were 
only translations. For many centuries Greek had 


84 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


been practically unknown in Western Europe but 
now, as has been finely said, ‘‘ Greece rose from 
the grave with the New Testament in her hand”’ 
and before the close of the century had become 
an important part of University education in 
Europe. 

And with it came the revival of the study of 
Hebrew. The first Greek grammar was pub- 
lished in 1476 and the first Hebrew grammar in 
1503. Then came Erasmus, a great Greek 
scholar, a friend of Sir Thomas More, and set 
himself to the study of the best old manuscripts 
he could find and so gave to the world in 1516 his 
famous Greek New Testament. His manuscripts 
were not very ancient nor critically valuable. His 
Greek Testament consequently was not very per- 
fect. But it was a precious boon to the Church 
and the precursor of a great movement in Bible 
translation. 


III. 


First (1) the Printing Press; Next (2) the 
revival of Greek learning; Then (3) Erasmus’ 
Greek Testament; and now (4) at this critical © 
period came forth the man who was to use these 
new powers with such marvellous effect in the ser- 
vice of the English Bible. XIn 1483, the year after 
the birth cf Luther, and a hundred years after the 


[PP 
j 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 85 


death of Wycliffe, William Tyndale was born. He 
grew up a thoughtful, studious youth, and at an 
early age won for himself in Oxford a distin- 
guished position for scholarship. Soon afterward 
he moved to Cambridge where Erasmus had been 
professor. It was just about the time when Cam- 
bridge had received the new Greek Testament. 
To Tyndale, who was a good Greek scholar and 
conversant with the Scriptures, this book of 
Erasmus was an inspiration. Probably it first sug- 
gested to him his design of an English New Tes- 
tament translated from the original. At any rate 
the design was in his mind, for shortly afterward 
we learn that one day, in the sudden heat of con- 
troversy, he startled the company present by his 
memorable declaration, whose fulfillment was 
afterward the object of his life. ‘‘ We had bet- 
ter,” said his opponent, ‘‘ be without God’s laws 
than the Pope’s.””. And Tyndale rose in his indig- 
nant wrath. ‘‘I defy the Pope,” he cried, “ and 
all his laws; and if God spare me I will one day 
make the boy that drives the plough in England to 
know more of Scripture than the Pope does.’’* 


~ He had already translated some portions from 


the original Greek, and now, encouraged by the 


1 An edition of Tyndale’s Testament, prepared during his im- 
prisonment, is sometimes spoken of as the literal fulfillment of 
this vow—a Testament for the ploughboys of his native county. 
It contains words seemingly of a provincial dialect—faether, 
maester, sloene, oones, whorsse, &c. More probably, however, 
these peculiarities are due to a Flemish proof-reader, 


86 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. - 


report he had heard of him as a patron of the 
“new learning,” he applied to Cuthbert Tonstal, 
Bishop of London, for permission to carry on his 
work in the episcopal household under his lord- 
ship’s patronage, and with episcopal sanction. 
The Bishop, he says, answered him that his house 
was full, he had more than he could well feed, and 
advised him to seek elsewhere in London. He | 
did so and was kindly received by Humphrey 
Monmouth, a merchant near the Tower, and in. 
his house for nearly a year he assiduously prose- 
cuted his task, perhaps still hoping for Met 
sanction and publishers’ favour. 

But he hoped in vain. It was a troubled time in 
the Church of England. Serious men were look- 
ing across the sea to Germany where Luther had 
nailed his theses to the church door and burned 
the Papal bull. Many in England were in sym- 
pathy with this revolt against authority and 
amongst them Monmouth, the protector of Tyn- 
dale, and probably also Tyndale himself. Many 
more dreaded it as a beginning of anarchy and 
schism, especially the Bishops and chief ecclesias- 
tics. These latter would be very unlikely at such 
a crisis to favour the innovation of a People’s 
Bible, especially one translated by an unknown 
man, perhaps even already a suspected man, and 
Tyndale knew well that without the sanction of 
the Church no publisher would dare to print his 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 87 


New Testament. ‘‘ Wherefore,” he sadly says, 
‘IT perceived that not only in my lord of London’s 
palace, but in all England, there was no room for 
attempting a translation of the Scriptures.” * 


IV. 


Tyndale, however, was not one of those who, 
having put their hands to the plough, look back. 
He had determined that England should have the 
Word of God spread among her people by means 
of this new invention of printing, and he had 
calmly counted the cost. If his work could be 
done in England, well. If not—if only a life of 
exile could accomplish it—then that.life of exile 


he svould cheerfully accept. So in 1524-he-left—_. 


his rrative land, never to see it again; and at Ham- 
burg, in poverty and distress, and amid constant 
danger, the brave-hearted exile worked at his 
translation,? and so diligently that the following 
year we find him at Cologne with the sheets of his 
quarto New Testament already in the printer’s 


hands. " 


* Tyndale’s Preface. 

? He seems to have had no help in the translation. For cor- 
recting proofs and such work he had one Friar Roye, whom he 
rather humorously describes. “As long as he had no money I 
could somewhat rule him, but as soon as he had gotten him 
money he became like himself again. So as soon as I was ended 
I bade him farewell for our two lives, and as men say a day 
longer.” 


88 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. » 


But a sad disappointment was in store for him. 
He had kept his secret well, and he hoped that in 
a few months more the little book would be 
spreading in thousands through the length and 
breadth of England. But just as his hopes were 
highest, one day there came to him a hurried mes- 
sage at his lodgings, and half distracted he rushed 
to the printer’s house, seized all the sheets he - 
could lay hands on, and fled from the town. A 
priest named Cochlaeus had heard an idle boast 
of some printers which roused his suspicions, and 
by diligently plying them with wine the startling 
secret at length came out that an English New 
Testament was actually in the press, and already - 
far on its way to completion. Quite horrified at 
such a conspiracy, ‘‘ worse,’ he thought, “ than 
that of the eunuchs against Ahasuerus,”’ he at 
once gave information to the magistrates, and 
demanded that she sheets should be seized, while — 
he at the same time despatched a messenger to the 
English bishops to warn them of this unexpected 
danger. Hence the consternation of Tyndale and 


i _ his hurried flight from Cologne. 


With his precious sheets he escaped to Worms, 
where the enthusiasm for Luther and the Refor- 
mation was then at its height, and there at length 
he accomplished his design, producing for the first 
time a complete printed New Testament in 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 89 


English.1 Knowing of the information that 
Cochlaeus had given, and that in consequence the 
books would be jealously watched, he printed also 
an edition in smaller size, as more likely to escape 
detection, and at once made provision for the for- 
warding his dangerous merchandise to England. 
In cases, in barrels, in bales of cloth, in sacks of 
flour, every secret way that could be devised, the 
books were sent; and in spite of the utmost vigi- 
lance in watching the ports, many of them arrived 
and in a few years the books were scattered far 
and wide through the country. 


V. 


Again comes before us the obvious question, 
already discussed in Wycliffe’s case, How does it 
happen that bishops and clergy and leading relig- 
ious laymen of the high type of Sir Thomas More, 
opposed so strongly the circulation of Tyndale’s 
Bible? Be it clearly understood that we have no 


1We have an interesting account of Tyndale’s work at 
Worms, from the diary of a German scholar who was a casual 
visitor there in 1526. After mentioning other subjects of con- 
versation at the dinner-table, the writer goes on to say—“ One 
told us that 6,000 copies of the English New Testament had been 
printed at Worms, that it was translated by an Englishman who 
lived there with two of his countrymen, who was so complete a 
master of seven languages—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, 
Spanish, English, French—that you would fancy that whichever 
he spoke in was his native tongue. He told us also that the 
English, in spite of the active opposition of the King, were so 
eager for the Gospel that they would buy the New Testament 
even if they had to give 100,000 pieces of money for it.” 


90 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


desire to be apologists for More or for the 
Church. We are simply trying to understand a 
puzzling situation. Naturally the persecuted 
party at the time assumed that it was because they 
were all bigoted, arrogant tyrants opposed to the 
spread of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. Men 
of those days did not usually seek to look for the 
good in their opponents. Luther’s enemies used 
to say that because he burned the Pope’s bull he 
would burn the Pope himself also if he could. 
Even the kindly Tyndale was roused to say that 
the bishops who could burn the Gospel of Christ 
would do the same to Christ Hits if they had 
had Him. 

But practical men looking back ie from the 
distance of centuries are suspicious of such sweep- 
ing statements. They see the great opponents, 
More and Tyndale, both perhaps the noblest 
Englishmen of their day, both saints of God, both 
martyrs who laid down their lives for conscience 
sake, and they suspect that there must be some- 
thing to say on both sides. Our experience of 
religious and political controversies is that when 
men get to know sympathetically their opponents, 
they frequently find that the best of them are as 
earnest about right as themselves, only with, a 
different conception as to what is right. It is 
always well to try to understand the other man’s 
point of view. 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 91 


VI. 


In trying to think ourselves into the position of 
Tyndale’s opponents it is necessary first to realize 
that in the foreground of religious thought at the 
time was not “‘ the open Bible ”’ but “‘ the teaching 
Church,” which held the Bible in trust for the 
edifying of her people. The Church was the 
sacred thing, the Divine Society founded by her 
Lord, coming down through all the ages, one 
body, the centre of unity, the dispenser of the 
Holy Sacraments, the teacher of the people in 
their holy faith. She was ever to keep before 
them the Atonement of Christ in the great service 
of the Mass. She was to give the appointed Scrip- 
ture portions in the Psalms and Sunday Gospels. 
Thus had she nourished religious life in the past 
ages when men never thought of an open Bible and 
were too ignorant to use one even if they had it. 
That Church with all her faults was still the cen- 
tral fact and any disturbing of her foundations 
would be fatal to religion. 

Such was the attitude of English Churchmen to 
Church and Bible in pre-Reformation days. Now 
the great Reformation movement was arriving. 
It was the result of long growing causes and ten- 
dencies in the past in which the Wycliffe Bible and 
the Renaissance movement had doubtless a large 
share. ; No one man originates such movements. 


; 


92 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


They “ arrive’ in course of time in the Provi- 


dence of God. It is foolish to speak of Luther as 
the author of the Reformation in Germany. It 
is a petty sneer of Roman Catholics that the Ref- 
ormation in England was the result of the shame- 
ful amours of Henry VIII. Henry had his part 
in bringing about the Reformation as Pontius 
Pilate had in bringing about the Atonement. The 
great flood of new tendency was increasing its 
pressure all over Europe and in England Henry 
just loosed, as it were, the floodgates and let the 
flood go through. At any rate it was going 
through. In God’s good time men were going 
beyond the trammels and leading strings of child- 
hood. They were ready for a fuller Bible. They 
had learned to think. They could see the corrup- 
tions of the Church. And now it depended on the 
action of the Church whether there should come a 
Reformation or a Revolution. 


VIL. 


It was a critical time. Reform was “ in the air.” 
But there were two types of the men who desired | 
reform. One type represented by Sir Thomas 
More and Erasmus and Fisher, bishop of Roches- 
ter, and Colet, the Dean of St. Paul’s. They 
loved and reverenced the Church and sought wise, 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 93 


conservative reform. They deeply dreaded what 
seemed to them the reckless movements into which 
Lutheranism was growing, which tended, as they 
believed, to undermining authority and alienating 
men, not merely from the Papacy but from the 
organized Church itself and its ordained ministry. 
They did not, in theory at least, oppose an English 
Bible provided it was issued under proper safe- 
guards. Erasmus, who gave the Church his New 
Testament in Greek, to the deep satisfaction of the 
English Bishops, wished also for a Bible in the 
language of the people, “that the husbandman 
might sing it at his plough and the weaver at his 
shuttle.* Sir Thomas More, the sternest of Tyn- 
dale’s opponents, professed the same sentiment, 
but this translation, he insists, must be made by 
Catholic-minded men (i. e., loyal Churchmen) 
and at a less disturbed time and under proper 
Church authority, certainly not by private, un- 
authorized translators. Whether we agree with 
them or not it is surely possible at least to appre- 
ciate their position and perhaps even to believe 
that such men would be the wisest type of Reform. 
ers provided they could accomplish their purpose. 
At the same time one cannot help feeling that in 
the general attitude of Churchmen in their day 
there might be very considerable waiting for that 
English Bible. 


*Preface to his Greek Testament. 


94 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


The other type of Reformers were such men as 
Tyndale and Frith and Barnes and their friends, 
who in their holy zeal felt that the Bible had been 
kept back too long and were indignant with the 
Church who had failed in her duty. They were 
good and earnest men seeking the truth. The 
Church met their efforts with haughty intolerance. 
Naturally they felt it. It is the sad Nemesis of an 
unfaithful Church that her earnest sons should 
attempt reform in an impatient and somewhat hos- 
tile spirit. So it was with Wycliffe. So it was with 
Luther. So it was now, though in lesser degree, 
with Tyndale and his friends. Not only did they 
attack the corruptions of the Church, but their zeal 
carried them on to the undermining of its au- 
thority. Their controversial works caused much ~ 
offence. Some of their religious teaching was con- 
demned as heretical. Churchmen also remem- 
bered bitterly that in their time of peril when King 
Henry was trying to bend the Church of England 
to his wicked will, his favorite book was Tyndale’s 
“Obedience of a Christian Man,” which pro- 
claimed the right divine of Kings over all and 
asserted that the Bishops had little or no right to 
obedience. It is easy to understand how such 
things should prejudice Tyndale’s new Bible, all 
the more so that that Bible was annotated with 
controversial notes which were sometimes painful 
reading for loyal Churchmen. 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 95 


‘All this must be considered by the impartial 
reader who desires to understand fairly the posi- 
tion. He must remember that it was four centu- 
ries ago. Toleration is a growth of later days. 
Though Tyndale and his friends were in some 
degree to blame the whole story is a sorrowful 
episode in the history of the Church of England. 
Here was one of her sons estranged by her faults 
and yet withal no self-seeking demagogue but a 
humble, modest man, full of zeal for God’s truth, 
such an one surely as might have been won back to 
his loyalty by wise, sympathetic bishops who 
should share with him in his longing for the 
highest good of the people. He openly declared 
that he had no wish to form a sect, that he would 
withdraw his book if even a worse one were set 
forth by authority. But it was an unsympathetic 
age. It had not been softened as in our day by 
400 years of an open Bible. So the opposition 
remained, 


VIII. 


The Bishops made a determined attempt to stop 
the circulation of Tyndale’s New Testament. It 
was no easy task. Wrycliffe’s Testaments had been 
troublesome enough, even though it took months 
to finish a single copy and the cost was in a great 
measure prohibitive. But here were books pour- 


96 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


ing into the country capable of being produced at 
the rate of hundreds per day, and at a price within 
the reach of all. Vigorous measures indeed 
__would be necessary now! 

The warning of Cochlaeus had set them on 
their guard, and every port was carefully watched 
by officers appointed for the purpose. Thousands 
of copies were thus seized in their various dis-. 
guises, and were burned with solemn ceremony at 
the old cross of St. Paul’s, as ‘“‘ a burnt-offering. 
most pleasing to Almighty God;”* and still 
other thousands supplied their place.” Tyndale 
was but little discouraged at their efforts, for he 
knew that the printing press could defy them all. 
“In burning the book,”’ he says, ‘‘ they did none. 
_ other thing than I looked for; no more shall they 

_ do if they burn me also, if it be God’s will that it 
\_ should be so.” 

It was quite clear that they could not hinder the 
entrance of the book into England. And then a 
brilliant thought occurred to the Bishop of Lon- 
don. He sought out Augustine Pakington, a mer- 
chant trading to Antwerp, and asked his opinion 
about the buying up of all the copies across the 
water. 

‘““My lord,” replied Pakington, who was a 


* Cardinal Campeggio’s letter to Wolsey. 
* About 15,000 of his first New Testament were issued within 
four years, 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 97 


secret friend of Tyndale, ‘‘if it be your pleasure 
I could do in this matter probably more than any 
merchant in England; so if it be your lordship’s 
pleasure to pay for them—for I must disburse 
money for them—I will insure you to have every 
book that remains unsold.” 

“ “Gentle Master Pakington,’ said the bishop, 
deemyng that he hadde God by the toe, whanne 
in truthe he hadde, as after he thought, the devyl 
by the fiste,* ‘do your diligence and get them 
for me, and I will gladly give you whatever they 
may cost, for the books are naughty, and I intend 


surely to destroy them all, and to burn them af 
Paul’s Cross.’.”’ | 


A few weeks later Pakington sought the trans 
lator, whose funds he knew were at a low ebb. 

“Master Tyndale,” he said, ‘‘ [have found you 
a good purchaser for your books.” 

“Who is he?” asked Tyndale. 

“ My lord of London.” 

“ But if the bishop wants the books it must be 
only to burn them.” 

“Well,” was the reply, ‘‘ what of that? The 
bishop will burn them anyhow, and it is best that 
you should have the money for the enabling you 
to imprint others instead.” 

And so the bargain was made. ‘‘ The bishop 


1“ Halle’s Chronicle.” 


98 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


had the books, Pakington had the thanks, and 
Tyndale had the money.” 

‘‘T am the gladder,”’ quoth Tyndale, “ for these 
two benefits shall come thereof. I shall get money 
to bring myself out of debt, and the whole world 
will cry out against the burning of God’s Word, 
and the overplus of the money that shall remain 
with me shall make me more studious to correct 
the said New Testament, and so newly to imprint 
the same once again, and I trust the second will 
be much better than ever was the first.”’ 

The Chronicle * which relates the story goes on 
to tell that—‘“ After this Tyndale corrected the 
same Testaments again, and caused them to be 
newly imprinted, so that they came thick and 
threefold into England. ‘The bishop sent for 
Pakington again, and asked how the Testaments 
were still so abundant. ‘ My lord,’ replied the 
merchant, ‘it were best for your lordship to buy 
up the stamps too by the which they are im- 
printed.’ ” | 

It is with evident enjoyment that the old chron- 
icler presents to us another scene as a sequel to 
the story. A prisoner, a suspected heretic named 
Constantine, was being tried a few months later 
before Sir Thomas More. ‘‘ Now Constantine,” 
said the judge, “I would have thee to be plain 
with me in one thing that I shall ask, and I prom- 


4“ Halle’s Chronicle.” 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 99 


ise thee I will show thee favor in all other things 
whereof thou art accused. There are beyond the 
sea I'yndale, Joye, and a great many of you; I 
know they cannot live without help. There must 
be some that help and succor them with money, 
and thou, being one of them, hadst thy part there- 
of, and therefore knowest from whence it came. 
I pray thee, tell me who be they that help them 
thus.”’ 

“My lord,” quoth Constantine, “I will tell 
thee truly—it is the Bishop of London that hath 
holpen us, for he hath bestowed among us a great 
deal of money upon New Testaments to burn 
them, and that hath been our chief succor and 
comfort.” | 

“’ Now by my troth,” quoth Sir Thomas More, 
“I think even the same, for I told the bishop thus 
much before he went about it,” 


IX. 


The opponents of the book began at last to see 
that a printed Testament continually being pro- 
duced was quite beyond their power to destroy. 
Bishop Tonstal profited by his lesson, and instead 
of buying and burning the book any longer, he 
preached a famous sermon at Paul’s Cross, 
declaring its ‘“‘ naughtiness,” and asserting that he 
himself had found in it more than two thousand 


100 | HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE> 


errors; and at the close of his sermon he hurled 
the copy which he held into a great fire that blazed 
before him. Sir Thomas More, whose influence 
was so deservedly great in England, followed up 
the attack. ‘‘ To study to find errors in Tyndale’s 
book,” he said, ‘‘ were like studying to find water 
in the sea.’ It was even too bad for revising and 
amending, ‘ for it is easier to make a web of new 
cloth than it is to sew up every hole in a net.” ” 
Tyndale indignantly replied to this attack ; and cer- 
tainly his opponent does not show to advantage in 
the argument, his sweeping charge narrowing 
itself down at the last to the mistranslation of 
half a dozen words. 

Such attacks, made from airerene pulpits 
throughout the land, were much more effective 
than the previous stupid measures adopted against 
the Bible, chiefly because the people could seldom 
hear the refutation. But this was not always so. 
Tyndale had many sympathizers in the Church 
who wanted the open Bible in England, and they 
as well as Tyndale defended the book when they 
could, and generally with success. 


*“ There is not so much as one i therein,” says Tyndale, “if 
it lack the tittle over its head, but they have noted and number it 
to the ignorant people for a heresy.” 

*More’s animus against Tyndale is amusingly shown in his 
description of the translation of Jonah—‘“ Jonas made out by 
Tyndale—a book that whoso delyte therein shall stande in peril 
that Jonas was never so swallowed up by the whale as by the 
delyte of that booke a mannes soul may be swallowed up by the 
Devyl that he shall never have the grace to get out again.” 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 101 


a 


In 1529 Latimer had preached at Cambridge 
his celebrated sermons ‘On the Card,” which 
attracted a good deal of attention, arguing in 
favor of the translation and universal reading of 
Holy Scripture. The friars were enraged, and the 
more so as his reasoning was so difficult to answer. 
At length they selected a champion, Friar Buck- 
ingham; and certainly, if he may be taken as a 
type of the friars of his day, the Reformers’ 
sneers. at their ignorance were not without 
grounds.* A Sunday was fixed on which he was 
to demolish the arguments of Latimer, and on the 
appointed day the people assembled, and a sermon 
against Bible translation was preached which to us 
now must read more like jest than sober argument. 

“Thus,” asked the preacher with a triumphant 
smile, ‘ where Scripture saith no man that layeth 
his hand to the plough and looketh back is fit for 
the kingdom of God, will not the ploughman 
when he readeth these words be apt forthwith to 
cease from his plough, and then where will be the 
sowing and the harvest? Likewise also whereas 
the baker readeth, ‘ A little leaven leaveneth the 
whole lump,’ will he not be forthwith too sparing 
in the use of leaven, to the great injury of our 


*“ They said there was a new language discovered called 
Greek, of which people should beware, since it was that which 
produced all the heresies; that in this language was come forth 
the New Testament, which was full of thorns and briars; that 
there was another new language too, called Hebrew, and they 
who learned it were turned Hebrews.”—Hody, De Textibus Bibl. 


102 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


health. And so also when the simple man reads 
the words, ‘If thine eye offend thee pluck it out 
and cast it from thee,’ incontinent he will pluck 
out his eyes, and so the whole realm will be full 
of blind men, to the great decay of the nation and 
the manifest loss of the King’s grace. And thus 
by reading of the Holy Scriptures will the whole 
realm come into confusion.” 

The next Sunday St. Edward’s Church was 
crowded to the doors, for the report had gone 
abroad that Latimer was to reply to the Grey 
Friar’s sermon. At the close of the prayers the 
old man ascended the pulpit, and amid breathless 
silence the sermon began—such a crushing, scath- 
ing rebuke as Buckingham and his party never 
recovered from in Cambridge. One by one the 
arguments were ridiculed as too foolish for a 
really serious reply. ‘‘ Only children and fools,” 
he said, “‘ fail to distinguish between the figurative 
and the real meanings of language—between the 
image which is used and the thing which that 
image is intended to represent. For example,” he 
continued, with a withering glance at his oppo- 
nent, who sat before the pulpit, “ if we paint a fox 
preaching in a friar’s hood, nobody imagines that 
a fox is meant, but that craft and hypocrisy are 
described, which so often are found disguised in 
that garb.”’ , 

It was evident, too, dist Seg | of the people 


| 


7 nS 


i 
; 
; 
: 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 103 


sympathized with the Reformers in such contests. 
Day by day it became clearer now that the tide of 
public opinion in England was setting too strongly 
to be resisted in favour of a ‘‘ People’s Bible.” In 
spite of all opposition the book was being every- 
where talked about and read. “It passeth my 
power,” writes Bishop Nikke, complaining to the 
Primate, ‘it passeth my power, or that of any 
spiritual man, to hinder it now.’’ There was no 
room for questioning about it. The path of the 


Bible was open at last. Nor king nor bishop could 


stay its progress now. Over England’s long night 
of error and superstition God had said, “ Let 
there be light! ” and there was light. 


X. 


- But the Light-bringer himself did not see that 
day. For weary years he had laboured for it, a 


| worn, poverty-stricken exile in a far away German 
_ town, and now when it came his heroic life was 
- over—the prison and the stake had done their 


work. His enemies were many and powerful in 
England, and Vaughan, the royal envoy, had been 
instructed to persuade him to return. But Tyn- 
dale refused to go. ‘‘ Whatever promises of 
safety may be made,” he said, “the king would 
never be able to protect me from the bishops, who 


104 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


believe that no faith should be kept with heretics.” 
It is only fair to say that there is not the slightest 
evidence that the English bishops had anything 
to do with Tyndale’s death in Germany. The 
traitor by whose means he was taken was a villain 
named Phillips, a clergyman of very plausible 
manners, who contrived to win the confidence of 
the unsuspecting exile, “‘ for Tyndale was simple 
and inexpert in the wily subtleties of the world.” 
He confided in Phillips as a friend, lent him 
money when he wanted it and utterly refused to 
listen to his landlord’s suspicions about the man. 
At length, their plans being ripe, Tyndale was 
enticed some distance from his house, seized by 
Phillips’ lurking assistants, and hurried to the dun- 
geons of the Castle of Vilvorden. It is pitiful to 
read of the poor prisoner there, in his cold and 
misery and rags, writing to the governor to beg 
‘your lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that 
if I am to remain here during the winter, you will 
request the procureur to be kind enough to send 
me from my goods which he has in his possession 
a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely from a per- 
petual catarrh, which is much increased by this 
cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have 
is very thin; also a piece of cloth to patch my leg- 
gings—my shirts too are worn out. . . . Also 
that he would suffer me to have my Hebrew Bible 
and Grammar and Dictionary.” | 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 105 


There was no hope of escape from the first. 
He knew that the clerical influence in England was 
too strong against him to hope for any help in that 
quarter. Long ago he had said with foreboding, 
“ If they burn me also, they shall do none other 


thing than I look for,” and now his foreboding 


was to be realized. On Friday the 6th October, 
1536, he was strangled at the stake and then 
burned to ashes, fervently praying with his last 
words, “ Lord, open the King of England’s eyes,” 
a prayer which was nearer to its answer than the 


_ heroic martyr deemed. 


There is no grander life in the whole annals of 
the Reformation than that of William Tyndale— 
none which comes nearer in its beautiful self- 
forgetfulness to His who “‘ laid down His life for 
His sheep.” Many a man has suffered in order 
that a great cause might conquer by means of him- 
self. No such thought sullied the self-devotion of 
Tyndale. He issued his earlier editions of the 
New Testament without a name, “ following the 
counsel of Christ which exhorteth men to do their 
good deeds secretly.”’ ‘‘I assure you,” said he to 
Vaughan, the envoy of the king, “if it would 
stand with the king’s most gracious pleasure to 
grant a translation of the Scripture to be put forth 
among his people like as it is put forth among the 
subjects of the emperor here, be it the translation 
of whatsoever person he pleases, I shall imme- 


106 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


diately make faithful promises never to write 
more nor abide two days in these parts after the 
same, but immediately repair unto his realm, and 
there humbly submit myself at the feet of his royal 
majesty, offering my body to suffer what pain or 
torture, yea, what death his grace wills, so that 
this be obtained.” | 

Poverty and distress and misrepresentation 
were his constant lot; imprisonment and death 
were ever staring him in the face; but ‘‘ none of 
these things moved him, neither counted he his 
life dear unto him”? for the ane of 
the work which God had set him. 

No higher honour could be given to any man 
than such a work to accomplish, and among all the 
heroes of the Reformation none worthier of that. 


honour could be found than William Tyndale. 


XI. 


And now we have to tell of the translation 
itself. As we have seen already, all the earlier 
English versions were but translations of a trans- 
lation, being derived from the Vulgate or older 
Latin versions. ‘Tyndale for the first time goes 
back to the original Hebrew and Greek,’ though 


*See Diagram facing the title-page. Besides Erasmus’ Greek 
‘Testament, Tyndale had also before him the Latin Vulgate and 
Erasmus’ Latin translation of the New Testament. [t is said 
too that he used Luther’s German Bible. 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 107 


the manuscripts accessible in his time were not of 
much authority as compared with those used by 


_ our recent revisers. 


And not only did he go back to the original 
languages seeking for the truth, but he embodied 
that truth when found in so noble a translation 
that it has been but little improved on even to the 
present day. Every succeeding version is in 
reality little more than a revision of Tyndale’s; 
even our present Authorized Version owes to him 
chiefly the ease and beauty for which it is so 
admired. “The peculiar genius,’ says Mr. 
Froude, “which breathes through the English 
Bible, the mingled\ tenderness and majesty, the 
Saxon simplicity, the grandeur, unequalled, unap- 
proached in the attempted improvements of mod- 
ern scholars—all are here, and bear the impress 
of the mind of one man, and that man William 
Tyndale.” 

The New Testament was the work to which he 
chiefly devoted himself, bringing out edition after 
edition as he saw anything to be improved. Of 
the Old Testament he translated only the Penta- 
teuch, the Historical Books, and. part of the 
Prophets. 

The margin contains a running comment on the 
text, and some of the notes rather amusingly 
exhibit his strong anti-Papal and anti-clerical feel- 
ing. 7 He has a grim jest in the margin of Exod. 


108 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


xxxll. 35, “The Pope’s bull slayeth more than 
Aaron’s calf.” On Lev. xxi. 5 he comments, “ Of 
the heathen priests, then, our prelates took the 
example of their bald pates;’’ and where the 
account is given, Exod. xxxvi. 5, &c., of the for- 
bidding the people to bring any more offerings for 
the building of the tabernacle, he has this note on 
the margin, “ When will the Pope say Hoo! 
(hold!) and forbid an offering for the building 
of St. Peter’s Church? And when will our spirit- 
uality say Hoo! and forbid to give them more 
land? Never until they have all.”’ 

Many of his quaint expressions have been 
altered in succeeding versions, not always, per- 
haps, for the better. Here are a few as specimens 
taken almost entirely from the New Testament: 

Gen. xxxix. 2—‘‘ And the Lorde was with 
Ioseph, and he was a luckie felowe.”’ 

Matt. xxvi. 30—‘* When they had said grace.” 

Mark vi. 27-—“ He sent forthe the hangman.” 

Rey. 1. 1o—‘‘ I was in the Sprete on a Son- 
daye.”’ 

Matt. xxvii. 62—‘‘ The daye that foloweth 
Good Fridaye.” 

1 Cor. xvi. 8—‘ I will tarry at Ephesus til Wit- 
sontyde.” : 

Acts xiii. 15——“‘ The rulers of the synagogue 
sent to them after the lecture, saying, If ye have 
any sermon to exhort the people, say on.” 


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TYNDALE’S VERSION. 109 


Acts xiv. 13—‘ Brought oxen and garlandes to 
the churche porche.” 

1 Peter v. 3—* Be not as lordes over the par- 
rishes.”’ 

‘Heb. xii. 16—“ Which for one breakfast sold | 
his birthright.” 

Matt. iv. 24—*“‘ Holden of divers diseases and 
gripinges.”’ 

Matt. vi. 7—‘‘ When ye pray, bable not 
moche.”’ 

Matt. xv. 27——“‘ The whelpes eat of the 
- crommes.”’ 
Mark xii. 2—‘ He sent to the tenauntes a ser- 
vant.” } 

Luke xx. 9—“ He lett it forthe to fermers.” 

The following passage from Luke ii. I have 
selected as a characteristic specimen of Tyndale, 
though perhaps not showing as well as other pas- 
sages would the resemblance to our Authorized 
Version. Opposite is printed the corresponding 
portion in Wycliffe’s Testament, to show the 
growth of the English language in the meantime: 


110 | HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


Specimen from Wycliffe. 





(LUKE ii. I-11.) 


Forsotbe if was oon in tho dapes, a 
maundement went out fro Caesar Hugust 
that al the world scbulde be discrnped. 
Chis first discrupinge was maad of Cprpne 
{ustice of Cirpe, and alle men wenten that 
thei scbulde make profesciounech bp bime 
self in to bis cite. Sotbly and Joseph 
stighede up fro Galilee of the cite of 
Hazaretb in to Jude, in fo a cite of Danith 
that is clepid Bedleem, for that be was 
of tho bouse and meypne of Dautth, that 
be schulde Rnowleche with Warp witb — 
child spousid wt to bym. 

Sotblp tt was don whanne thei weren 
there the dapes weren fulfilled that she 
scbulde bere child. Hndsbe childtde ber 
firste born sone and wlappide bpm itn 
clotbis and putted bym in a cracche, for 
ther was not place to bym tn the compn 
stable. 


TYNDALE’S VERSION. 111 


Specimen from Tyndale. 





(LUKE ii. 1-11.) 


- Bit folowed fin thoose dayes that there 
Wente oute acommaundmentfromHuguste 
the Emperour that all the woorlde shulde 
be valued. This tarpnge was first eres 
cufed when Sprenus was leftenaunt in 
Siria. Hnd everp man wente in to 
bis awne shire toune there to be tared. 
End Joseph also ascended from Galile 
Oute of a cite called Wazareth, unto 
Jewry, into a cite of David which i{s 
called) Bethleem, because be was of the 
bougsse and linage of David, to be tared 
with Marp bis wedded wyfe, which was 
with childe. And tt fortuned while they 
there were ber tyme was come that she 
sbuloe be delpvered. Hnd she brought 
fortbe ber first begotten sonne and 
wrapped bym in swaddipnge clothes, and 
layed bym in a manger be cause there was 
no roume for them witbin in the bostrep. 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 


I. Three Years After. II. Twenty Years After. III. Fifty 
Years More gone by. 


** Lorp, open the King of England’s eyes!” 

Pity that William Tyndale, as he gasped forth 
his dying prayer, could not have lifted even a 
little way the veil that hid from him the future of 
England. 


if 


THREE YEARS AFTER. 

In every parish church stands an English Bible, 
whose frontispiece alone is sufficient to tell of the 
marvelous change that has taken place in the 
meantime. 

The design is by Holbein. In the first com- 
partment the Almighty is seen in the clouds with 
outstretched arms. Two scrolls proceed out of 
His mouth to the right and to the left. On the 
former is the phrase, ‘‘ The word which goeth 
forth from me shall not return to me empty, but 
shall accomplish whatsoever I will have done.” 


112. 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 113 


The other is addressed to King Henry, who is 
kneeling in the distance bareheaded, with his 
crown lying at his feet—‘‘ I have found me a man 
after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all my will.” 
Henry answers, ‘‘ Thy word is a lantern unto my 
feet.” 

Immediately below is the King, seated on his 
throne, holding in each hand a book, on which is 
written “ The Word of God.” This he is giving 
to Cranmer and another bishop, who, with a 
group of priests, are on the right of the picture, 
saying, ‘“‘ Take this and teach;”’ the other, on the 
opposite side, he holds out to Cromwell and the 
lay peers, andthe words are, ‘‘I make a decree 
that in all my kingdom men shall tremble and fear 
before the Living God;”’ while a third scroll, 
falling downward over his feet, speaks alike to 
peer and prelate—“ Judge righteous judgment; 
turn not away your ear from the prayer of any 
poor man.” | 

In the third compartment Cranmer and Crom. 
well are distributing the Bibles to kneeling priests 
and laymen, and at the bottom a preacher with a 
benevolent and beautiful face is addressing a 
crowd from a pulpit in the open air. He is appar- 
ently commencing his sermon with the words, ‘‘ I 
exhort, therefore, that first of all supplications, 
prayers, thanksgivings, be made for all men, for 
kings ”—and at the word “ kings’ the people are 


114. HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


shouting, ‘‘ Vivat Rex!” children who know no 
Latin lisping, ‘‘ God save the King! ’’ while at the 
extreme left a prisoner at a jail window is joining 
in the cry of delight as if he too were delivered 
from a worse bondage." 

' This was the so-called ‘‘ Great BisLe”’ of 
1539, the first English ‘‘ Authorized Version.” 

It was indeed a marked change that had passed 
over England. ‘The Reformation was gaining 
ground among clergy and laity, Henry had openly 
broken with the Pope, and there seemed no dispo- 
sition anywhere to oppose the desire for a “ Peo- 
ple’s Bible.” 

But the opposition to William ‘Tyndale still 
remained. His writings had already been pub- 
licly condemned, and the men who had condemned 
him and placed a ban upon his works were re- 
solved that his Bible should never be the Bible of 
England. 

Yet this ‘‘ Great Bible,” the Authorized Ver: 
sion of the nation, was virtually Tyndale’s! 

This is how it came about. Already in these 
three years three different versions had appeared 
in England. Within a few years after the appear- 
ance of Tyndale’s New Testament the Church of 
England had wakened to the needs of the time 
and carried in Convocation, 1534, a petition for 


* This description is taken from Mr. Froude’s History of Eng- 
land, where, however, the frontispiece is erroneously said to 
belong to an edition of the Coverdale Bible. 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 115 


an English translation of the Scriptures. We may 
well believe that the influence of Tyndale’s Ver- 
sion had a good deal to do with this improved atti- 
tude. In 1535, the very year of Tyndale’s impris- 
onment, came the Bible* of Myles Coverdale, 
afterwards Bishop of Exeter, the man who after 
Tyndale has played the most prominent part of 
any in the history of the English Bible. Cover- 
dale was a man of very different stamp from his 
great predecessor. He had neither his ability nor 
strength of character, nor was he, like him, fitted 
by a lifelong study for his task as a translator, and 
the difference comes markedly out in the work pro- 
duced by each. But it is only fair to say, too, that 
he was quite conscious of his defects, that he did 
the work before him to the best of his ability, 
“seeking it not, neither desiring it,’”’ but feeling 


* Sometimes called the “ Treacle Bible,” from its rendering of 
Jer. viii. 22, ‘‘ fs there no triacle in Gilead?’’ Here are 
some other curious expressions :— 

Gen. viii. r1—*‘ The dove bare an olive leafe in her nebbe.” 


Joshua ii. rz—“ Our heart had fayled us, neither is there good 
stomacke in any manne.” 
Judges ix. 53—“ And brake his brain-panne.” 
Job v. 7—“ It is man that is born to misery like as a byrd for 
to flee.” 
Acts xi. 3—“ Ther widowes were not looked vpon in the daylie 
handreaching.” 


In original edition Queen Anne is referred to as the king’s 
dearest juste wyfe and most virtuous princesse.” A copy now 
{n the British Museum has this inscription, but “ Ane” is changed 
to Jane, thus JAne. The other copies have, some Ane, some 
Jane, while some actually leave the space blank, as if the editor 
were unable to keep pace with Henry’s rapid change of wives. 


116 § HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


that his country needed it done, and modestly 
regretting that no better man was there to do it. 

Coverdale was a man of sympathetic nature and 
fine literary instinct and the attractive English of 
his translation has considerably influenced the lan- 
guage of the Authorized Version. His Bible 
makes no pretence to be an original translation; 
it is “‘translated out of Douche and Latin into 
English,” with the help of ‘‘ five sundry interpre- 
ters’’ (i. e., translators), and the chief of these 
“interpreters ’’ is evidently William Tyndale, 
whom, in the New Testament especially, he closely 
follows. 

The following year (1537) appeared “ Mat- 
thews’ Bible.’’* which was really prepared by 
John Rogers, one of the early Reformers, after- 
ward martyred in Queen Mary’s reign. His 
known opinions and his connection with Tyndale 
accounts for the suppression of his real name as 
likely to injure the circulation of the book. This 
work was Tyndale’s translation pure and simple, 
all but the latter half of the Old Testament 
(which is taken, with some alteration, from 
Coverdale’s Bible) ; and one feels pleased for the 
old exile’s sake, though his honor was given to 
others, that Archbishop Cranmer should “ like Jit 
better than any translation heretofore made,” he 
‘‘ would rather see it licensed by the king than re- 

*TIn it the Song of Solomon is entitled ** Solomon’s Balades,”’ 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 117 


\ceive £1,000,” and ‘‘ if they waited till the bishops 


should set forth a better translation they would 
wait,” he thinks, “til the day after doomsday.” * 
It is not easy to understand how it escaped detec- 
tion as the work of Tyndale, especially as it con- 


| tained many of those strong anti-clerical notes by 


_which Tyndale’s version gave such offence. 
Shortly after appeared ‘‘ Taverner’s Bible,” ? 


which was little more than an edition of Mat- 
thews’ with its more violent polemical notes toned 
down or omitted. 

None of these versions were satisfactory. 
Coverdale’s was but a second-hand translation, 
and Matthews’ was only in part derived from the 
originals, besides which the controversial notes 
were against its success. 

So it came to pass that the Great Bible was set 
on foot by the Church. Archbishop Cranmer and 
some of the chief advisers of the king had set 
their hearts on having a translation that would be 
really worthy of its position as a National Bible. 
Myles Coverdale was selected to take charge of 


1“ Cranmer’s Remains and Letters,” p. 344. Parker Society. 

2 Little is known of him. The description in Fuller’s “ Church 
History,” chap. ii. p. 459, is certainly not flattering—“ Surely 
preaching must have run very low if it be true what I read that 
Mr. Tavernour of Water Eaton, in Oxfordshire, gave the 
scholars a sermon at St. Mary’s with his gold chain about his 
neck and his sword by his side, beginning with these words, 
“ Arriving at Mount St. Mary’s in the stony age where I now 
stand, I have brought you some fine biscuits baked in the oven of 
charity and carefully conserved for the chickens of the Church, 
the sparrows of the Spirit, the sweet swallows of salyation.” 


118 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


the work, and he proceeded to Paris with che 
king’s printer, that the book might be brought out 
in the best possible style. But the Inquisitor- 
General got notice of the project, and the result 
was a repetition of the episode of Tyndale at 
Cologne, only that Coverdale fared better than 
his great predecessor, for though his Bibles were 
all seized by the “‘ Lieutenant Criminall,”’ he car- 
ried off the printing-press, the types, and the prin- 
ters themselves to complete the work in England. 
It was published in April, 1539, and was “ author- 
ized to be used and frequented in every church in 
the kingdom.” The reader who wants a speci- 
men of its style has but to turn to the Psalms in 
his Prayer-Book or the ‘‘ Comfortable Words ”’ 
in the Communion Service, which are taken un- 
changed from the Great Bible. It has another 
point of interest in connection with the Revised 


Version. It indicated some texts as doubtful by 


printing them in small type, and among them was 
the celebrated passage 1 John v. 7, 8, which the 
recent revisers have omitted altogether.’ 

But more important to notice is the fact that the 
book is really no new translation. It may be 
described as a compilation from Matthews’ and 


*When Henry was asked to authorize it, “Well,” said ive, 
“but are there any heresies maintained thereby?” They an- 
swered that there were no heresies that they could find main- 
tained in it. “Then in God’s name,” said the King, “let it go 
forth among our people.” 

*See forward page 441. 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 119 


Coverdale’s Bibles—or better still, perhaps, as a 
| revision of Matthews’ by Coverdale; and since, 

as we have seen, Matthews’ was almost entirely 
_ Tyndale’s version, the Great Bible was really little 
_ more than a revised edition of ‘Tyndale! 

Thus had the old martyr triumphed. These 
men had opposed him to the very day of his 
death, and now here was his Bible in their midst, 
though they knew it not, authorized by the king, 
commended by the clergy, and placed in the parish 
churches for the teaching of the people! And as 
if to mark the change with all the emphasis that 
was possible, an inscription on the title-page told 
that ‘“‘it was oversene and perused at the com- 
mandement of the King’s Highness by the ryghte 
reverende fathers in God, Cuthbert bishop of 
Duresme (Durham), and Nicholas bishop of 
Rochester.” Who, think you, reader, was Cuth- 
bert of Duresme? None other than Cuthbert 
Tonstal, his untiring opponent, the bishop who 
had turned him discouraged from his door, who 
had bargained with Pakington to purchase the 
Bibles, who had hurled into the flames from the 
pulpit of Paul’s Cross the translation which now 
went forth with his own name on its title page. 


120 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


IT. 


TWENTY YEARS AFTER. | 

It is the day of Elizabeth’s entry into London, 
and the streets are bright with waving banners and 
gay dresses of the citizens struggling to get closer 
to the royal procession, and shouting with joy as 
they behold their young queen. ‘There is more in — 
those shouts than the mere gaiety of a holiday 
crowd. It is a glad day for many in England. 
/ The dark reign of Mary is over, with its imprison- 
/ ments and martyrdoms, and the men of the Refor- 
_ mation are looking forward hopefully to the 
future. There are those in that crowd who have 
lived for years in constant dread—there are those 
who have had to fly for their lives, some of them 
companions of the exiles at Geneva, waiting ta 
send word to their comrades abroad how it should 
fare in England. 

Now the shouting has ceased. ‘There is a pause 
in the long line of banners and plumes and glitter- 
ing steel. The procession has just arrived at “‘ the 
little Conduit in Chepe,’’ where one of those 
pageants, the delight of our forefathers, is pre- 
pared. An old man in emblematic dress stands 
forth before the queen, and it is told Her Grace 
that this is Time. ‘‘ Time,” quoth she, “ and 
Time it was that brought me hither.” Beside him 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 121 


stands a white-robed maiden, who is introduced as 
“Truth, the daughter of Time.” She holds in 
her hand a book on which is written “ Verbum 
veritatis,’ the Word of truth, an English Bible, 
which she presents to the queen. Raising it with 
both her hands, Elizabeth presses it to her lips, 
and then laying it against her heart, amid the 
enthusiastic shouting of the multitude, she grace- 
fully thanks the city for so precious a gift. 

/ It was a good omen for the future of the Bible, 
/ which had been almost a closed book in the pre- 
| ceding reign. And within three months it was fol- 
| lowed by one still more significant. The Reform- 
ers who had fled to Geneva returned to their 

homes, bearing with them a new version of the 
Bible, the work of the best years of their banish- 
ment,’ and the dedication of the book was ac- 
cepted by Elizabeth. 

This was the first appearance in England of the 
famous Geneva Bible, the “‘ Breeches Bible,” as it 
was afterward called, from its rendering of Gen- 
esis lil. 7, where Adam and Eve “ sewed fig-tree 
leaves together, and made themselves breeches.” ? 
It was the most popular Bible that had ever 
appeared in England, and for sixty years it held 


*Myles Coverdale was one of them. 

7 It was really only one edition published by Barker that con- 
tained this reading, which was also the reading of Wycliffe’s 
Bible. 


122 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


its own against all rivals, for a time contesting the 
ground even with our own Authorized Version. 
It was both cheaper and less cumbrous than the 
“Great Bible” of Cranmer, as well as being a 
much more careful and accurate work, though, 
like most of its predecessors, it was more a 
revision than a translation, being chiefly based on 
Tyndale. It contained marginal notes, which 
were considered very helpful in dealing with 
obscure passages of Scripture, though, as might 
be expected from Geneva, they were sometimes 
of a strongly Calvinistic and anti-church bias.* 
These notes should possess a special interest for 
us, for, as we shall see afterward, we have partly 
to thank them for our Authorized Version of 
to-day. 

_ Some other of its peculiarities are worth notice. 
It was the first Bible that laid aside the old black 
letter for the present Roman type. It was also 
the first to recognize the divisions into verses, and 
the first to omit the Apocrypha. It omits the 
name of St. Paul from the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
and it uses italics for all words not occurring in 
the original. 


* Take for example the note on Rev. ix. 3. The “locusts that 
came out of the bottomless pit” are explained as meaning 
“false teachers, heretics, and worldly subtil prelates, with 
Monks, Friars, Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, 
Doctors, Bachelors and Masters of Artes, which forsake Christ 
to maintain false doctrine.” 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 123 


The history of the dark troublous days of oppo- 
sition to the Bible and persecution to its promoters 
ceases forever (let us hope) with the issue of the 


Geneva Bible. 


III. 


Firty YEARS More GONE BY. 

How Tyndale’s heart would have swelled at the 
‘sight! A king of England himself is directing an 
English Bible translation ! . 

-In January,.1604, a conference of bishops and 
clergy had been held in the drawing-rooms of 
Hampton Court Palace, under the presidency of 
King James himself, to consider certain alleged 
grievances of the Puritan party in the Church, and » 
among other subjects of discussion was rather 
unexpectedly brought up that of the defectiveness 
of the two current translations of Scripture. 

England had at that time three different ver- 
sions. The Genevan was the favorite of the peo- 
ple in general; a rival version, called the Bishop’s 
Bible, which had been brought out some eight 
years after, was supported by ecclesiastical au: 


thority; while the “ Great Bible ” of Henry Viti, 


9 


124 | HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 
Specimens. 
23D PsAiM. Igr VERSE BY 


COVERDALE’S, 1535. 


| The Lorde is my shepberde 
fi can want notbing. ‘be 
fedetb me in a greene pas= 
ture and [edetb me toa fresb 
water.@ be quickenetb my 
soule and bringetb me forth 
in the waype of rigbtecous= 
ness for bis names sake. 
Though fT sbhulde walke now 
in the valley of the sbadowe 
of death pet fl feare no enell 
for thou ate with me, thy 
staffe and thy sbepeboke 
comftorte me. 

Thou preparest a table 
before agapnst mine ences 
mies thou anopntest my 
beade witb ople and tyllest 
my cuppe full. Ob let thy 
louing=kpndnes and mercy 
folowe me all the dayes off 
my ipfe that 7 mape dwell 


in the bouse off the ZLord. 


for ener, 


GREAT BIBLE, 1539. 


e 
The Lorde ts my shepberde 


therefore can ff lacke notbs 
ing. He sbal fede me ina 
gtene pasture and Ieade me 
forth bespde pe watirs of 
coforte.” te sbal conuert | 
my soule and bring me forth 
in ye patbes of rigbtcousnes 
for bis names sake. Pea 
thougb 1 walke tborowe pe 
vallepe of pe shadowe of 
death T wyl fear no euell 
for thou art ws me: tby rod 
and thy stafte comfort me. 

Thou sbalt prepare a table 
before me agapnet tbem 
tbat trouble me: tbou bas 
anopnted mp bead wi: ople 
and my cup sbal be ful. 
But louing kpndnes and 
metcy sbal folowe me all 
the dayes of my Ipfe and 
T wyll dwel in pe bouse of 
pe Lorde for euer. 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE'S DAYS. 125 


Specimens. 


23D PsaLM. 


GENEVAN BIBLE, 1560. 

1. The Lord is my shepheard 
I shall not want. 

2. Hee maketh mee to rest in 
greene pasture and leadeth 
mee by the still waters. © 

3. He restoreth my soule and 
leadeth me in the paths of 
righteousness for His Names 
sake. 

4. Ye though I walk through 
the valley of the shadowe of 
death I will feare no euiil for 
thou art with me: thy rodde 
and thy staffe they comfort me. 

5. Thou doest prepare a table 
before me in the sight of mine 
adversaries; thou dost anoynt 
mine head with oyle and my 
cup runneth over. 

6. Doubtlesse kindnesse and 
mercy shall follow mee all the 
dayes of my life and I shal 
remaine a long season in the 
house of the Lord. 


BisHops’ BIBLE, 1568. 

1. God is my _ shephearde 
therefore I can lacke nothyng: 
he wyll cause me to repose my- 
selfe in pasture full of grasse 
and he wyll leade me vnto 
calme waters. 

2. He will conuert my soule; 
he wyll bring me foorth into 
the pathes of righteousnesse for 
his names sake. 

3. Yea though I walke 
through the valley of the shad- 
owe of death I wyll fear no 
euyll; for thou art with me, 
thy rodde and thy stafie be the 
thynges that do comfort me. 

- 4. Thou wilt prepare a table 
before me in the presence of 
myne aduersaries; thou has 
anoynted my head with oyle 
and my cup shalbe brymme ful. 

5. Truly felicitie and mercy 
shal folowe me all the dayes 
of my lyfe: and I wyll dwell 
in the house of God for a long 


tyme. 


126 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


might still be seen chained to a stone or wooden 
desk in many of the country churches. But none 
of these was likely to be accepted as the Bible of 
the English nation. ‘The Great Bible was anti- 
quated and cumbersome, the Genevan, though a 
careful translation and convenient for general use, 
had become, through the Puritan character of its 
notes, quite the Bible of a party; while the 
Bishops’ Version, a very inferior production, 
neither commanded the respect of scholars nor 
suited the wants of the people. | 

There was, therefore, plainly a need for a new 
version, which, being accepted by all, should form 
a bond of union between different classes and rival 
religious communities. Yet when Dr. Reynolds, 
the leader of the Puritan party, put forward such 
a proposal at the Conference, it was very coldly 
received, Bancroft, bishop of London, seeming to 
express the general feeling of his party when he 
grumbled that “ if every man had his humor about 
new versions, there would be no end of translat- 
ing.” Probably the fact of the proposal having 
come from the Puritans had also some effect on 
this conservatism of the bishops; in any case it 
seemed that the project must fall through for 
want of their support. 

But if the bishops in the palace drawing-room 
that day thought so, they soon found that they had 
literally “ calculated without their host.” There 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 127 


was one man in that assembly who looked with 
special favour on the new proposal, and that man 
was the royal pedant who presided. A Bible 
translation made under his auspices would greatly 
_ add to the glory of his reign, besides which, to a 
man whose learning was really considerable, and 
who was specially fond of displaying it in theo- 
logical matters, the direction of such a work would 
be very congenial. And if a further motive were 
needed, it was easily found in his unconcealed dis- 
like to the popular Geneva Bible. The whole 
tone of its politics and theology, as exhibited in 
the marginal notes, was utterly distasteful to 
James, as he plainly showed soon after in his 
directions to the new translators, for ‘“ marry 
withal, he gave this caveat, that no notes should 
be added, having found in those which were an- 
nexed to the Geneva translation some notes very 
partial, untrue, seditious, and savoring too much 
of dangerous and traitorous conceits.”’ 

Two of these notes especially vexed him. In 
2 Chron. xv. 16 it is recorded that Asa ‘“‘ removed 
his mother from being queen, because she had 
made an idol in a grove”; and the margin con- 
tains this comment, “‘ Herein he showed that he 
lacked zeal, for she ought to have died,” a remark 
probably often remembered by the fanatics of the 
day in reference to the death of James’s mother, 
the Queen of Scots. There was another note which 


128 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


rather amusingly clashed with the grand Stuart 
theories of the divine right of kings to be above 
all law and to command implicit obedience from 
their subjects. In the passage in the first chapter 
of Exodus describing the conduct of the Hebrew 
midwives, who “ did not as the king of Egypt com- 
manded, but saved the men-children alive,” the 
margin declares ‘‘ their disobedience to the king 
was lawful, though their dissembling was evil.” 
“Tt is false,” cried the indignant advocate of 
kingly right; ‘“‘to disobey a king is not lawful; 
such traitorous conceits should not go forth among 
the people.” ihe 

But, however men may smile at the absurdities 
of James, which in some measure led to the new 
translation, there can be no question as to the wis- 
dom shown in his arrangements for carrying out 
the work. Fifty-four learned men were selected 
impartially from High Churchmen and Puritans, 
as well as from those who, like Saville and Boys, 
represented scholarship totally unconnected with 
any party. And in addition to this band of ap- 
pointed revisers, the king also designed to secure 
the codperation of every Biblical scholar of note 
in the kingdom. ‘The Vice-Chancellor of Cam- 
bridge was desired to name any fit man with whom 
he was acquainted, and Bishop Bancroft received 
a letter from the king himself, directing him to 
* move the bishops to inform themselves of all 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE’S DAYS. 129 


such learned men within their several dioceses as, 
having especial skill in the Hebrew and Greek 
tongues, have taken pains in their private studies 
of the Scriptures for the clearing of any obscuri- 
ties either in the Hebrew or the Greek, or touch- 
ing any difficulties or mistakings in the former 
English translations, which we have now com- 
manded to be thoroughly viewed and amended, 
and thereupon to earnestly charge them, signify- 
ing our pleasure therein, that they send such their 
observations to Mr. Lively our Hebrew reader in 
Cambridge, or to Dr. Harding, our Hebrew 
reader in Oxford, or to Dr. Andrews, Dean of 
Westminster, to be imparted to the rest of their 
several companies, that so our said intended trans- 
lation may have the help and furtherance of all 
our principal learned men within this our king- 
dom.”’ | 

An admirable set of rules was drawn up for the 
instruction of the revisers, directing amongst other 
things that the Bishops’ Bible should be used as a 
basis, and departed from only when the text re- 
quired it; that any competent scholars might be 
consulted about special difficulties; that differences 
of opinion should be settled at a general meeting; 
that divisions of chapters should be as little 
changed as possible, and marginal references 
should be given from one scripture to another; 
and last, but by no means least, that there should 


130 + HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


be NO MARGINAL NOTES, except for the explana- 
tion of Hebrew and Greek words. This simple | 
rule did probably more than anything else to make 
our Authorized Version the Bible of all classes 
in England, binding us together as a Christian 
nation by a tie which the strife of parties and the 
war of politics has since been insufficient to sever. 
Had the opposite course been adopted, we should 
now have probably the Bibles of different religious 
bodies competing in unseemly rivalry, each reflect- 
ing the theological bias of the party from which 
it came. | 

Never before had such labour and care been 
expended on the English Bible. The revisers 
were divided into six companies, each of which 
took its own portion, and every aid accessible was 
used to make their work a thorough success. They 
carefully studied the Greek and Hebrew; they 
used the best commentaries of European scholars; 
the Bibles in Spanish, Italian, French, and German 
were examined for any help they might afford in 
arriving at the exact sense of each passage; and 
when the sense was found, no pains were spared to 
express it in clear, vigorous, idiomatic English. 
All the excellences of the previous versions were 
noted, for the purpose of incorporating them ‘in 
the work, and even the Rhemish (Roman Cath- 
olic) translation was laid under contribution for 
some expressive phrases which it contained. 


THE BIBLE AFTER TYNDALE'’S DAYS. 181 


‘* Neither,” says Dr. Miles Smith, in the preface, 
‘* did we disdain to revise that which we had done, 
and to bring back to the anvil that which we had 
hammered, fearing no reproach for slowness nor 
coveting praise for expedition;’’ and the result 
was the production of this splendid Authorized 
Version of which Englishmen to-day are so justly 
proud. 

For more than two centuries English Protestant 
writers have spoken of it in terms of almost unani- 
mous praise—its “ grace and dignity,” its ‘‘ flow- 
ing words,” its ‘‘ masterly English style.”’ Even 
a Roman Catholic divine, Dr. Geddes (1786), 
declares that “if accuracy and strictest attention 
to the letter of the text be supposed to constitute 
an excellent version, this is of all versions the 
most excellent.’’ And an almost touching tribute 
is paid it by one who evidently looked back on it 
with yearning regret, after having exchanged its 
beauties for the uncouthness of the Romanist ver- 
sions. ‘‘ Who will say,’ writes Father Faber, 
“that the uncommon beauty and marvellous 
English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the 
great strongholds of heresy in this country? It 
lives on the ear like a music that can never be for- 
gotten, like the sound of church bells, which the 
convert scarcely knows how he can forego. Its 
felicities seem often to be almost things rather 
than words. It is part of the national mind, and 


132 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


the anchor of the national seriousness. Nay, it is 
worshipped with a positive idolatry, in extenua- 
tion of whose fanaticism its intrinsic beauty pleads 
availingly with the scholar. The memory of the 
dead passes into it. The potent traditions of 
childhood are stereotyped in its verses. It is the 
representative of a man’s best moments; all that 
there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and 
pure, and penitent, and good speaks to him for- 
ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred 
thing, which doubt never dimmed and controversy 
never soiled; and in the length and breadth of the 
land there is not a Protestant with one spark of 
religiousness about him whose spiritual biography 
is not in his Saxon Bible,” 


CHARTER VILE 


THE REVISED VERSION. 


I. Preparation for Revision. II. The Jerusalem Chamber. III. 
The Revisers at Work. IV. Claims of the Revised Bible. 
V. Should it Disturb Men’s Faith? VI. General Remarks. 
VII. Conclusion. 


WHILE fully appreciating the beauty and excel- 
lence of his Authorized Version, the reader who 
has thus far followed this little sketch will scarcely 
require now to ask, Why should we have needed a 
new revision? 

He will have seen that the whole history of the 
English Bible from Tyndale’s days is a history of 
growth and improvement by means of repeated 
revisions. T'yndale’s first New Testament (1525) 
was revised by himself in 1534, and again in 1535. 
In Matthews’ Bible it appeared still more im- 
proved in 1537. The Great Bible (1539) was the 
result of a further revision, which was repeated 
again in the Genevan (1560), the Bishops’ 
(1568), and still more thoroughly in our splendid 
Authorized Version (1611), which latter is itself 
one of the best proofs of the value of Bible 
revision. | 

133 


134 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


He will have seen also (to recapitulate here for 
greater clearness)——(1.) that in the present day 
we have access to a treasury of ancient manu- 
scripts, versions, and quotations such as the schol- 
ars of King James’s day had never dreamed of; 
(2.) that the science of textual criticism, which 
teaches the value and the best methods of dealing 
with these documents, has entirely sprung up since; 
(3.) that our scholars are better acquainted with 
the Sacred Languages, and able to distinguish 
delicate shades of meaning which were quite lost 
on their predecessors; and (4.) lastly, that owing 
to the natural growth of the English language 
itself many words in the Authorized Version have 
become obsolete, and several have completely 
changed their meaning during the past 300 years. 

This last is more important than people think. 
More than 200 words have thus quite changed 
their meaning, e. g., carriages, comfort, common, 
conversation, damnation, let, malice, mortify, 
prevent, &c.; also phrases such as “take no 
thought,” &c. Sometimes the change of meaning 
is of very serious consequence. Take, for ex- 
ample, the word DAMNATION which now conveys . 
to us the idea in every case of doom to a Hell of 
unending torment and unending sin. The English 
word did not mean that some centuries ago. The 
original Greek word means to judge or sometimes 
to judge adversely, to condemn, and the old 


THE REVISED VERSION. 135 


English word “‘ damn’”’ meant that and no more. 
There is an interesting example in the Wycliffe 
Bible in the passage about the woman taken in 
adultery, St. John viil. 10. Jesus says, “’ Woman, 
hath no man damned thee?” ‘‘ No man, Lord.” 
‘Neither do I damn thee.’ That is to say, the 
English word damn at that time only meant con- 
demn, without saying to what one was condemned. 
But words are dangerous things if not carefully 
watched, owing to this tendency to change their 
meaning as a language grows. For example, “ He 
that believeth not shall be damned ”’ would, three 
or four hundred years ago, have correctly 
expressed the meaning of the Greek. Not so 
to-day. The English word “ damned” has taken 
on a darker meaning. Therefore we must sub- 
stitute for it the word “‘ condemned.” So that on 
account of this change of meaning as a language 
grows, if for no other cause, revision at certain 
periods will always be needed. 

For all these reasons then the duty is laid upon 
our Biblical scholars which Tyndale in his first 
preface imposed on those of his own day, “ that if 
they perceive in any place that the version has not 
attained unto the very sense of the tongue or the 
very meaning of Scripture, or have not given the 
right English word, that they should put to their 
hands and amend it, remembering that so is their 
duty to do.” 


136 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


About the beginning of the last century the 
appearance of several partial revisions by private 
individuals indicated the feeling in the minds of 
scholars that the time for a new Bible Revision 
was at hand. As years went on the feeling grew 
stronger, and leading men in the Church were 
pleading that the work should not be long delayed. 
During the past 250 years, they urged, great 
stores of Biblical information have been accumu- 
lating;? our ability to use such information has 
been greatly increased; and it is of importance to 
the interests of religion that that information 
should be fully disseminated by a careful correc- 
tion of our received Scriptures. Dr. Tischendorf’s 
discovery at Mount Sinai still further intensified 
this feeling; and so it created little surprise when, 
on the roth February, 1870, Bishop Wilberforce 


* Fully 200 years ago the way began to be prepared for our 
present revision by several criticisms and attempts at correction 
of the Authorized Version. It soon became clear, however, that 
such attempts were premature in the then state of information 
as to the Original Scriptures, and scholars began to direct their 
attention rather to the laying of the foundation for a revision in 
the future by collecting and examining Greek and’ Hebrew 
manuscripts, together with the various early versions and quota- 
tions from the Fathers. Toward the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury Kennicott and De Rossi had published the results of their 
examination of several hundred Hebrew manuscripts; and in 
more recent times the same service was rendered to the Greek 
by Drs. Tischendorf, Tregelles, Scrivener, and others, whose way 
had been prepared by many distinguished predecessors. Besides, 
there was the work of a long series of commentators in investi- 
gating the meaning of the Sacred Writers, so that, on the whole, 
a very valuable foundation for revision existed ‘by the middle 
of the present century. 


THE REVISED VERSION. 137 


rose in the Upper House of the Southern Convo- 
cation to propose, ‘‘ That a committee of both 
Houses be appointed, with power to confer with 
any committee that may be appointed by the Con- 
vocation of the Northern Province, to report on 
the desirableness of a revision of the Authorized 
Version of the New Testament, whether by mar- 
ginal notes or otherwise, in all those passages 
where plain and clear errors, whether in the Greek 
text adopted by the translators, or in the transla- 
tion made from the same, shall on due investiga- 
tion be found to exist.’ After the enlarging of 
this resolution so as to include the Old Testament 
also, it was adopted by both Houses. 


If. 


Four months later, on a summer day toward 
the close of June, 1870, a distinguished company 
was assembled in the Jerusalem Chamber in West- 
minster Abbey. 

In that room in days long gone by the first of 
the Lancastrian kings breathed out his weary life. 
Beneath those windows sat the ‘“‘ Assembly of 
Divines” when the ill-fated Charles ruled in 
England; here the Westminster Confession was 
drawn up; and here too, under the auspices of 
William of Orange, was discussed the great 


138 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


Prayer-Book Revision of 1689, intended to join 
together Churchmen and Dissenters. 

But no memory of that ancient chamber will 
eclipse-in the future that of the work for which 
these men were assembled on that summer after- 
noon, for the Bible Revision had at length been 
begun, and this was the appointed New Testa- 
ment Company. } 

At the centre of the long table sat the chairman, 
Bishop Ellicott, and around him the flower of our 
English scholarship. There were Alford and 
Stanley and Lightfoot, intently studying the sheets 
before them on the table. Westcott was there, 
and Hort and Scrivener—names long famous in 
the history of textual criticism—-Dr. Eadie of 
Scotland, and the Master of the Temple, and the 
venerable Archbishop Trench of Dublin, with 
many other scholars no less distinguished than 
they. Different religious communities were repre- 
sented—different schools of thought—diiferent 
opinions on matters closely connected with the 
work in hand. This is one of the great securities 
for the fairness of the New Revision. Whatever 
other charges may be brought against it, that of 
bias, even unconscious bias, toward any set of 
theological views is quite out of the question where 
Baptist and Methodist and Presbyterian and 
Churchman sat side by side in the selected com- 
pany of Revisers. And, as if to make this assur- 


THE REVISED VERSION. 139 


ance doubly sure, across the Atlantic a similarly 
constituted company was preparing to cooperate 
with these to criticize the work and suggest 
emendations, so that.on the whole nearly a hun- 
dred of the ripest scholars of England and 
America were connected with the New Revision. 


III. 


And now let us watch the Revisers at their 
work. Before each man lies a sheet with a column 
of the Authorized Version printed in the middle, 
leaving a wide margin on either side for suggested 
alterations, the left hand for changes in the Greek 
text, and the right for those referring to the 
English rendering. These sheets are already cov- 
ered with notes, the result of each Reviser’s pri- 
vate study of the passage beforehand. After 
prayers and reading of the minutes, the chairman 
reads over for the company part of the passage 
on the printed sheet (Matt. i. 18-25), and asks 
for any suggested emendations. 

At the first verse 2 member, referring to the 
notes on his sheet, remarks that certain old manu- 
scripts read “‘ the birth of the Christ ” instead of 
“the birth of Jesus Christ.” Dr. Scrivener and 
Dr. Hort state the evidence on the subject, and 
after a full discussion it is decided by the votes of 
the meeting that the received reading has most 


140 . HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. — 


authority in its favor; but, in order to represent 
fairly the state of the case, it is allowed that the 
margin should contain the words, ‘‘ Some ancient 
authorities read ‘ of the Christ.’”’ Some of the 
members are of opinion that the name “ Holy 
Ghost ’’ in same verse would be better if modern- 
ized into “ Holy Spirit,” but as this is a mere 
question of rendering, it is laid aside until the 
textual corrections have been discussed. The next 
of importance is the word “‘ firstborn ”’ in ver. 25, 
which is omitted in many old authorities. Again 
the evidence on both sides is fully stated, and the 
members present, each of whom has already pri- 
vately studied it before, vote on the question, the 
result being that the words “her firstborn’ are 
omitted. 

And now, the textual question being settled, the 
chairman asks for suggestions as to the rendering, 
and it is proposed that in the first verse the word 
‘betrothed’ should be substituted for “ es- 
poused,” the latter being rather an antiquated 
form. This also is decided by vote in the affiirma- 
tive, and thus they proceed verse by verse till the 
close of the meeting, when the whole passage, as 
amended, is read over by the chairman. 

Four years afterward we glance at their work 
again. They have reached now the First Epistle 
General of St. John, and the sheets lying before 
them contain part of the 5th chapter. No ques- 


THE REVISED VERSION. 141 


tion of importance arises till the 7th verse is 
reached— 


7. “For there are three that bear record [in heaven—the 
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. 
8. And there are three that bear witness in earth], the Spirit, 
and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one ’— 


when it is proposed that that part of the passage 
which we have here placed in brackets be omitted 
as not belonging to the original text. 

Time was when such a suggestion would have 
roused a formidable controversy;+ but textual 
criticism has greatly progressed since then, and the 
question is not considered by the Revisers even to 
need discussing. The evidence is as follows:— 
The passage occurs in two modern Greek manu- 
scripts—one of them in the library of Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin—in one or two Ancient Versions of 
comparatively little value, and many modern 
copies of the Vulgate; besides which it is quoted 
by a few African Fathers, whose testimony, on 
the whole, is not of much weight in its favor. 

Against this are to be set the following facts :— 
(1.) Not a single Greek manuscript or church les- 
son-book before the fifteenth century has any trace 
of the passage. This in itself would be sufficient 
evidence against it. (2.) It is omitted in almost 
every Ancient Version of any critical value, includ- 


* Upwards of fifty books, pamphlets, &c., written on the subject 
are mentioned in Horne’s Introduction. 


142 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


ing the best copies of the Vulgate (St. Jerome’s 
Revised Bible) ; and (3.) no Greek Father quotes 
it even in the arguments about the Trinity, where. 
it would have been of immense importance if it 
had been in their copies. There is other evidence 
against it also; but it must be quite clear, even 
from this, that the passage only lately got interpo- 
lated into our Greek Testament, and never had 
any right to its place in the English Bible.t. The 
Revisers therefore omit it from the text. | 

But the reader must not think that this descrip- 
tion represents the amount of care bestowed on 
the work. After this first revision had been com- 
pleted, of a certain portion, it was transmitted to 
America and reviewed by the American commit- 
tee, and returned again to England. Then it 
underwent a second revision, taking into account 
the American suggestions, and was again sent back 
to America to be reviewed. After these four 
revisions it underwent a fifth in England, chiefly 


*Erasmus (see page 83), not finding the words in any Greek 
manuscript, omitted them from the first two editions of his Greek 
Testament, which was chiefly the authority that our translators 
used. But as they had long stood in the Latin Vulgate, an outcry 
was at once raised that he was tampering with the Bible. He 
insisted that no Greek manuscript contained the passage; “ and,” 
said he at last, when they pressed him, “ if you can show me 
even a single one in which they occur, I will insert them in the 
future.” Unfortunately they did find one, the manuscript of 
Montfort, which is now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, 
but is evidently no older than about the fifteenth century. The 
words had got into it probably from some corrupt Latin manu- 
sorte and on this slight authority Erasmus admitted them into 

is text, 


THE REVISED VERSION. 143 


with a view of removing any roughness of render- 
ing. And there was yet a sixth, and in some cases 
even a seventh revision, for the settling of points 
that we need not enter on more fully here. So 
that we may have every confidence that the 
changes made, whatever their merits, at least were 
made only after the most thorough consideration. 

And so the work went on, month after month, 
and more than ten years had passed, and some of 
the most eminent of those who sat that summer 
day in the Jerusalem Chamber were numbered 
among the dead, when, on the evening of Novem- 
ber 11, 1880, the New Testament Company 
assembled in the church of St. Martin-in-Fields 
for a special service of thanksgiving and prayer 
—‘ of thanksgiving for the happy completion of 
their labors—of prayer that all that had been 
wrong in their spirit or action might mercifully 
be forgiven, and that He whose glory they had 
humbly striven to promote might graciously accept 
this their service, and use it for the good of man 
and the honour of His holy Name.” 

Four years afterward the Old Testament Com- 
pany finished their work, and on May sth, 1885, 
the complete Revised Bible was in the hands of the 
public. | 


144. HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


IV. 


Its reception has been disappointing. The pub- 
lic have largely failed to appreciate its great 
merits and its great value. But perhaps it is too 
soon yet to judge. For many years after its first 
appearance our present Authorized Version had to 
encounter fierce opposition and severe criticism— 
Broughton, the greatest Hebrew scholar of the 
day, wrote to King James that he “ would rather 
be torn asunder by wild horses than allow such a 
version to be imposed on the Church,” *——and yet 
in the end it won its way and attained a position 
that no version before or since in any country has 
attained. 

Whether the New Version will equally succeed, 
or whether, as is the general opinion, it will need 
a revision before being fully received, remains yet 
to be seen. But in any case it should get a fair, 
unprejudiced reception. Dr. Bickersteth tells of 
a smart young American deacon who thought to 
crush it on its first appearance by informing his 
people that ‘‘if the Authorized Version was good 
enough for St. Paul it was good enough for him,” 


*In fifteen verses of Luke iii., he says, the translators have fif- 
teen score of idle words to account for in the Day of Judgment. 
With Archbishop Bancroft, who took the lead in the work, he is 
especially indignant. He believes that by and by King James, 
looking down from Abraham’s bosom, shall behold Bancroft in 
the place of torment. 


THE REVISED VERSION. 145 


and it is to be feared that with many people who 
are less ignorant there is sometimes a similar 
spirit exhibited. 

Now let us remember that, whatever the merits 
or demerits of the book, it is at least entitled to 
respect as an earnest attempt to get nearer to the 
truth, and to present to English-speaking people 
the results of two centuries of study by the most 
eminent Biblical scholars. 

And remember, too, that no previous revision 
has ever had such advantages as this. Not to 
speak of the valuable manuscripts available, 
‘‘ upon no previous revision have so many scholars 
been engaged. In no previous revision has the 
codperation of those engaged on it been so equally 
diffused over all parts of the work. In no pre- 
vious revision have those who took the lead in it 
shown so large a measure of Christian confidence 
in those who were outside their own communion. 
In no previous revision have such effective precau- 
tions been created by the very composition of the 
body of Revisers against accidental oversight or 
against any lurking bias that might arise from 
natural tendencies or ecclesiastical prepossessions. 
On these accounts alone, if on no other, this 
Revision may be fairly said to possess peculiar 
claims upon the confidence of all thoughtful and 
devout readers of the Bible.” 


; 
ag 


146 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


V. 


It was objected by some, when this Revision 
was first proposed, that it would be dangerous to 
unsettle men’s faith by showing them that the old 
Bible they so reverenced contained many passages 
wrongly translated, and some even which had no 
right to a place in it at all. It is pleasant to see 
that we have got more common sense to-day. It 
would be a sad case indeed if men’s faith were 
ta depend on their teachers keeping from them 
facts which they themselves have long since- 
known—acting, to use Dean Stanley’s scathing 
comparison, like the Greek bishops at Jerusalem, 
who pretend at Easter to receive the sacred fire 
from heaven, and though they do not profess to 
believe personally in the supposed miracle, yet 
retain the ceremonial, lest the ignorant multitudes 
who believe in it should have their minds dis- 
quieted. 

Far better to do what has been done—fear- 
lessly make any changes that were necessary to 
remove the few superficial flaws in our Bible, and 
try to teach men the grounds on which such 
changes were made. Our faith is given to the 
words of the inspired writers. It is no disparage- 
ment to them if we discover that fallible men in 
collecting and translating these words have some- 


THE REVISED VERSION. 147 


times made mistakes, and it is certainly no honour 
to the words which we profess to reverence if we 
knowingly allow these mistakes to remain uncor- 
rected. 

When King James’s translation was offered 
there was no such fear of unsettling men’s faith, 
for the men of that day had already four or five 
different Bibles competing for their favour, and so 
they easily distinguished between an Inspired 
Original and the English versions of that original, 
one of which might easily be better than another. 

Rightly understood, this Revision should be 
rather a ground for increased confidence, showing 
us how nearly perfect we may consider our English 
Bible already, when we find that this thorough 
criticism and the investigation of material collect- 
ing for the past two hundred years has left un- 
changed every doctrine which we found in our Old 
Version, while it certainly is helping us to under- 
stand some of them more clearly than we ever did 
before. 


VI. 


A few remarks on the New Revision itself will 
close this chapter. ‘The Revisers refer to their 
work under the heads of TEext, TRANSLATION, 
LANGUAGE, and MARGINAL NOTEs. 

Whatever may be thought of their corrections 


148 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


of the Text (i. e., the original Hebrew and 
Greek), the reader is already in a position in some 
measure to judge of the sources of information 
accessible to them and of their fitness to make such 
corrections. : 

As to TRANSLATION and LANGUAGE, perhaps 
there is foundation for the charge, against the 
New Testament Company at least, of having dis- 
regarded the first rule laid down for them by Con- 
vocation, ‘‘ to introduce as few alterations as pos- 
sible into the text of the Authorized Version.” 
But before condemning them it is only fair to read 
their explanations in the Preface. It is also 
charged against them that their English is not as 
smooth and graceful as that of the Old Version 
to which we were accustomed. That istrue. But 
this at least will be universally allowed, that if we 
have lost in smoothness and beauty of diction, we 
have greatly gained in point of accuracy. A scru- 
pulous attention to the force of the Greek article, 
the different tenses of verbs, and the delicate 
shades of meaning in particles and prepositions, 
will account for many of the minor changes, 
which, though they may seem at first sight trifling 
and unnecessary, will often be found to affect seri- 
ously the meaning of a passage. The Revisers 
also claim to have avoided the practice, adopted in 
the Authorized Version, of translating for the 
sake of euphony the same Greek word by different 


THE REVISED VERSION. 149 


English words. For example, we have comforter 
and advocate—eternal and everlasting—count, 
and impute, and reckon *—as respectively render- 
ings of the same Greek word, while, on the other 
hand, to take only one example, the word 
“ordain”’ represents ten different words in the 
original Greek. The result of such a practice is, 
that the English reader, using a Concordance or 
the marginal references of his Bible to compare 
passages where the same word occurs, is some- 
times misled and frequently loses much useful 
information. 

In such cases the Revisers have sacrificed ele- 
gance to accuracy of translation, though, of 
course, that is not a sufficient plea, unless it can 
be shown that elegance and accuracy cannot here 
go together. 

The MarcinaL NOrEs contain much valuable 
information, and often throw fresh light on the 
translation in the text. But it is to be regretted 
that in a book intended for indiscriminate circula- 
tion the Revisers have used one class of these 
notes rather unguardedly. When such expres- 
sions are found as ‘“‘ Some manuscripts read the 
passage thus,” ‘‘Some ancient authorities omit 


*In Rom, iy., Authorized Version, these three verbs are used 
to represent one Greek verb, Let the reader turn to the Revised 
Version, where the word “ reckon” is used throughout the chap- 
ter, and he will see how much St. Paul’s argument has gained in, 
clearness though perhaps the passage in reading does not sound 
quite as well as before. 


150 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


these words,” &c., the reader who understands the 
state of the case sees nothing disturbing in the fact 
that out of a large number of authorities examined 
some few should vary from the reading found in 
all the others. Such readers the Revisers seem to 
have had in view. They did not enough think 
themselves into the position of the plain simple 
men and women who have never heard of such 
matters, and on whom one cannot help fearing, 
from the frequent repetition of such notes, they 
are likely to have a disturbing effect which is in 
reality quite unwarranted. | 

A very valuable improvement is the arrange- 
ment of the text into paragraphs adapted to the 
subject. The continuity of thought is not, as in 
our Authorized Version, interrupted by frequent 
and often very injudicious breaks into verses, 
while yet the facilities for reference are retained 
by the numbering of the old division in the margin. 
The printing of the Poetical Books in proper 
metrical form may be considered, too, a decided 
advantage. They were directed also to revise the 
headings of chapters, and it would certainly be 
an advantage if this were well done, adapting it 
to the paragraph system. But there is much force 
in their reason for leaving it undone. It involved 
in many cases expressions of theological opinion 
which could not fairly find a place in the Bible. 
Indeed, Jewish readers have had to complain of 


THE REVISED VERSION. 151 


the Old Testament chapter headings in the 
Authorized Version, that when the prophets speak 
of sin it is always the sin of the Jews, but when 
of glory and of holiness, it is the glory and holi- 
ness of the Church. 7 

On the whole, whatever the imperfections of 
the Revised Bible, and whatever its fate may be 
in the future, we may at the very least claim a 
present position for it as a most valuable com- 
mentary to the readers of the Authorized Version, 
placing them as nearly as an English version can 
do on the level with the reader of the original 
tongues. 


VII. 


But this is not to be the last stage in the history 
of the English Bible. Through all these centuries 
its language has grown in beauty, in clearness, in 
expressiveness, with the growth of the national 
life and thought and religion. It is more than any 
other a “ National Bible,” growing as the nation 
grew. 

The German Bible is the work of one man, 
Luther. The English Bible is the work of many 
generations of Englishmen. Cadmon and Alfred, 
Bede and Wycliffe, Tyndale and Coverdale, 
handed on the torch from one generation to 
another, and from Wycliffe’s day at least handed 
on the words and phrases and forms of expres- 


152 HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE. 


sion which have largely influenced the making of 
the English language. The history of the book is 
interwoven with the national history of freedom 
and independence and personal religion. There- 
fore it is to us of the Anglo-Saxon race not only 
the Word of God but also and essentially our 
National Book. 

But we have not yet produced our best. This 
Revised Version of 1880 is not our last word. It 
ought to have been a great success. It had more 
in its favour than any previous version. And yet 
we have to say, after thirty years, that the old 
Authorized Version, with all its defects, is still 
holding the ground, going out every year in quan- 
tities a hundred times greater than those of the 
Revised Version. 

The Old Version holds the ground not only by 
the familiarity of its language but by its wonderful 
charm. It is universally accepted as a literary 
masterpiece, as the noblest and most beautiful 
book in the world. The New Version is more 
accurate, more scholarly, more valuable. But it 
avails not. It lacks the literary charm. The ver- 
dict of the people is, “‘ The old is better.”’ 

On the whole we may assume that far into the 
twentieth century the Authorized Version will still 
remain the popular Bible. The version that is to 
supersede it will come some day, but when it does 
it will have more than accurate scholarship. It 


THE REVISED VERSION. 153 


will have in some degree at least the literary 
charm and ‘beauty which for 300 years has 
brought the whole English world under the spell 
of the old Bible. 


And now we have followed the story of the 
Bible from the old record chest of Ephesus 1800 
years ago to the Revised Version which is in our 
hands to-day, and it is hoped that the question has 
been in some measure answered, How we got our 
Bible. 

Let the story help us to value our Bible more. 
It is not without purpose that God has so wonder- 
fully inspired and preserved His message; it is 
not without purpose that He raised up His work- 
ers to search out the precious manuscripts from the 
dusty libraries of convent and cathedral, to collect 
and compare then together with such toil and care, 
and then to render into clear, graceful English for 
us the very message which He sent to earth thou- 
sands of years since to comfort and brighten 
human life. ‘ Other men indeed have laboured, 
and we have entered into their labours.” 

May it please Him who has so preserved for us 
His Word to grant us all ‘increase of grace to 
hear meekly that Word, and to receive it with pure 
affection, and to bring forth the fruits of the 
Spirit ””! 

THE END. 


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